Poor Service from Ebay and Paypal

It's about time someone did something like this so, here goes. If you've been using eBay for any length of time and have completed a significant number of transactions you will, no doubt, have had to contact Customer Support at some point.

My experiences over the years have not been good. I know I am not alone. You only need to read through the discussion boards to realise that many, many people have had and are having major issues with eBay and Paypal.

I have just read about one person who claims to have purchased an item for a very large sum of money which never turned up. The seller was selling a number of expensive items and subsequently had their account closed, no doubt for fraudulent dealings. No problem for the buyer you would think as they paid by Paypal and are fully protected. Wrong. Paypal only offered to refund nine or ten pounds. This may be a mistake on Paypal's part and the case is still ongoing but I am sure it is very stressful for the person involved.

Most timesI contact Customer Support by email I get standard responses that never address the issue raised and are merely copied and pasted from a large database no doubt. I try replying, asking them to answer the question and they then send the same rubbish again, this time from a different agent.

Their phone service is no better and generally seems to be run by amateurs. Their feedback system is a complete joke and now they've removed the totals column in your account activity so it's a lot harder to check their figures. Why would they do this? Check the discussion boards to find people who have found discrepancies in their account activity. Why eBay keeps changing the view of its site and auctions, I'll never know. It was better before.

Now you HAVE to accept Paypal as a form of payment. This is a joke when you are selling something for 99p. The whole exercise becomes virtually pointless.

The list of faults and complaints is endless. You just need to spend some time looking through the discussion boards and consider your own experiences.

People do stop using eBay but the effect is unnoticeable.If a couple of million of us stopped using eBay they would be forced to change and soon. Maybe we should set a date, like three years from today, when everyone walks away and stops using eBay and Paypal until users' views are acted upon and better service is provided.

There have been one or two other auction sites (QXL was one) over the years but eBay has become too successful and powerful.

If everybody who felt strongly enough left a vote it may make eBay listen and do something sooner rather than later.