A few months ago, after LVMH won the court case against Ebay in France, I noticed that I got an error message saying due to the court case I was not able to view or bid on certain items covered by the lawsuit, every time I tried to click on a health and beauty item. I used the web contact forms on the Ebay site 3 times over the past month trying to contact them to get the situation corrected, with no reply. Finally I tried the live help feature, and the person I spoke with said that yes, my account was restricted, but that she couldn't help me, I'd have to email Trust and Safety. Well, after emailing them multiple times with no reply whatsoever, a MUA friend gave me a secret 1-800 number to call and speak to a person. Twice I've called them, the first one said I had to use the live chat help because she could not do anything for me (which I did). The second time was today, when I decided to try one last time to resolve the issue.

The guy I got seemed polite and rational, but after explaining the problem in detail (about which he was totally ignorant), he implied that I was lying about having received no reply from Trust and Safety and that I had obviously incompetently described the issue. He kept repeating what was obviously a scripted response about how, "Trust and safety responds to all requests within 48 hours. You must have been contacted by them. I am sure they have responded to you."

I finally told him this was the worst customer service I had ever experienced, and closed my account in frustration. Now, I am a college-educated, mentally competent and literate individual, and my mind is boggled over this experience. I bet if I had a problem purchasing products on Nordstrom's website that they would be willing, even anxious, to help me resolve that issue. Not Ebay! They are obviously insane.

I've never had that exact same problem but I too have soured on ebay and have reduced my bidding. I hardly look there anymore. Once, I used to check it out everyday. So, I understand your actions.

Caz, even though I don't do ebay I can sympathize and empathize. I recently had an equally hair-tearing episode of dealing with HP customer "service." I was bandied back and forth between call centres in Canada, the US and India for over an hour with no resolution. When I complained to their ethics department about the disrespectful treatment, my complaint was forwarded to a call centre in Costa Rica, where two attempts to reach the person assigned to me were unsuccessful. My reason for calling: I wanted to exchange a defective printer cartridge for a good one. This leads to envisioning a joke: How many countries does it take to exchange a HP printer cartridge?

End of HP in my book. My next printer will be another brand which will be chosen by testing customer-service centres beforehand. Do they do this on purpose to dissuade customers from being able to communicate with them?

trust me, its not just eBay. They are outsourcing ALOT of businesses when it comes to customer service because its cheaper.

Add to that the fact that some of the people do not comprehend what you are telling them & nothing gets resolved!

Two years ago, I tried changing the last name on my account since I wasn't married to Idiot man anymore. I could not believe the red tape, so I said, just forget it and left my name as it was. What the heck, I at least still have the same address!!

Customer service is no longer customer oriented. Try contacting AOL sometime!!

I've bought thousands of dollars worth of stuff on eBay with nary a glitch.... Maybe I'm walking between the raindrops?

Me too! No problems with eBay here...

I stopped looking at eBay when they took Health & Beauty off eBay Express. I'm buying a lot less these days, too.....

Although I've experienced no ebay crap first-hand, I've radically reduced visits to the site and categories from which I'll purchase due to reports from a wide variety of sources.
Agree with Chardkay on the nature of modern customer service.

I do consumer counseling work, and can share a couple of hints:

There is a database called www.gethuman.com we use all the time. You look up the company (most big companies are there) and you'll find a series of "cheats" you can use to bypass those annoying voice protocols.

If you have a serious complaint, don't even bother with customer "service." We call this "customer no-service." You need to reach someone with some authority. Here's the best way to do this.

You need to deal with VP's. Their names are available by researching "Investor Relations." This involves finding the company's annual report. Most are available online, or, last resort, at a library. You're looking for a VP of investor relations, public relations or marketing. You need a person's name. There is also a database called Hoover's that can help with this. (Don't write to the CEO; that's overkill.)

Once you have the name of Mr. or Mrs. Big-Shot, make a quick call to see if they're still there in that job (if not, get the new person's name.) Then, you write them a brief, factual letter (NOT an e-mail, an old-fashioned letter) explaining exactly what has happened. Take it to the post office or a UPS store, and send it in some way that is trackable. (Keep a copy, of course.)

After a reasonable time -- 10 days to 14 days after they should've received it -- you call Mr. or Ms. Big's office, and politely inquire to his or her assistant as to whether the letter was received. If they profess no knowledge of it, politely mention that your tracking info shows that it was received, and signed for by __________________. Send the letter again. Repeat until somebody deals with you.

Mr. or Ms. Big won't deal with your issue personally, of course, but you can bet that they'll pass it down the food chain to someone who will have to.

This isn't about getting even or threatening someone's job or making anyone crazy; it's about letting these people know what is going on far below them, and giving them the opportunity to explain themselves or, often, make it right.

It doesn't always work, but does work a surprising percentage of the time.

Good luck!

^^Olfacta, that is all very, very good stuff. Thanks for that in-depth reply! I know there are people out there struggling with the frustrations of not only Ebay, but other etailers as well.

I'd bid on a small old bottle of Shalimar week before last. The powerseller -who didn't specialise in perfumes, sells all kinds of stuff- When I received it at the end of this week I found it had been opened, contrary to the sellers description. The liquid in the bottle was some nasty smelling swill, not Shalimar. I haven't yet heard from the seller. I want to send it back and get a refund.

This hasn't happened to me before. Wish me luck.

I too have had no trouble with purchases, but I did want to ask a question that is not in their FAQ section, so I got onto their live chat section. First I was told my question was too long. I shortened it to 2 lines. I was told that was too long. I then answered. "How long do you WANT it?" in sheer frustration, and got some answer that didn't make sense and eventually gave up by going to a chat site on ebay, asked the question and got a simple straight answer by a generous ebayer who responded immediately.

Often people on the ebay chatsites are far better at giving you answers than ebay itself.

Frankly I am just not that motivated to buy on Ebay that I'm willing to write to the Vice President (although if it were a serious matter involving lots of $$ I would certainly do it). Their customer service is non-existent. I too had used Ebay for years with no problems, until they mysteriously restricted my account and I found that no one was able or willing to help me. It seems that nowadays many companies truly don't care about retaining customers or providing decent support. Those businesses won't get MY business.

I got the same thing on a health item that had nothing to do with perfume!! You are not alone! I don't understand the logic anymore: where can you list your items, where must you be from to even see the items? There are ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.co.uk, ebay.com... Pleaseplease, someone explain to me: can you bid an item that is listed in the UK if you are from the US? Can you list fragrance at all if you are French? Can you list fragrance on ebay.com if you are French? Can a German buer buy from your fragrance if you're from the US?

I have bought stuff from Europe, less from the US. I still have my account left but I haven't been there a lot. I have registered through ebay.co.uk (no ebay.fi existing) but I usually log in at ebay.de because of the size of it (and it is so easy to pay for an item bought in Germany - compared to the medieval UK banking system). Gosh ebay is getting more and more unpleasant.

I shop for a lot of vintage perfume on E-bay in the US (don't necessarily[i]buy[i] there, and have noticed that most of the sellers won't ship from the US to Germany. I believe that the recent EU lawsuit by LVMH scared a lot of people, including E-bay in France, as I was hearing that it is now very difficult to purchase perfume from E-bay in France, any perfumes, not just the LVMH ones. I think everybody's kind of freaked out by this.
I think going onto the Ebay forums and asking other members is a good idea. It seems to be very difficult to get anything out of Ebay employees.

Ebay Trimming Jobs

The same thing happened to me, except it was a bottle of vintage L'Heure Bleue parfum. The seller packaged the juice separately in an old CVS prescription bottle, which popped open during shipment. Good thing she put it in a plastic baggie because that caught most of the (non)LHB juice -- that is the juice that didn't leak out of the hole in the plastic baggie. I had even emphasized to the seller that I'm not buying it for the bottle... I WANT THE JUICE.

That was the last time I ebayed.

I bought a vintage cannister of Chanel No. 5 talc and was beside myself with anticipation waiting for it to arrive -- and when it did, it had zero scent. I wrote to the seller and said this talc has zero scent, and she said send it back to me and I'll refund your money. End of story.

The only real problem I've ever had was over $9.xx (including shipping) of Aquamarine lotion that was shipped with defective lids. I had to go to the PO to pick the package up and it was in plastic bags and dripping. Almost all the lotion had come out of the bottles because the hinges on the lids were broken and the tops just popped off in transit. I didn't take pictures and document because I didn't feel like the hassle, but later on, I did ask for my money back, because the more I thought about it, the more I thought those hinges did not break during shipping -- they were like that when the sent them. Plus the lotion was just thrown in a plastic bag and shipped, no padding or anything. The seller offered me $3 and I refused it, so he left me negative feedback. It's irritating but it was less than $10, so ... *shrug*