Please Take a Short Survey to Rate eBay Customer Support

Dear eBay,

Thanks very much for offering me the opportunity to rate your customer support. At this particular moment there is nothing on earth I would like to do more.

How was my customer support experience today? Why, I'm so glad you asked! But please, eBay, let me start from the beginning.

You may remember, eBay, that at the end of May I sold an item to a person in Thailand. Per his request I shipped that item surface, and I made damn sure he knew that Canada Post Surface takes a VERY long time, "... at least 6-8 weeks". I provided said customer with a tracking number so he could follow his item's journey. That was the end of May.

Three weeks later, eBay, the customer apparently sent me an eBay message wondering why he hadn't received the item yet. I didn't even know he sent me a message - I have no reason to check my eBay account when I don't have active items. So only 3 weeks after his package was shipped, eBay, you apparently sent me a message saying he had filed a complaint about an unreceived item. You reimbursed the customer for the item and charged me. This, despite the fact that when I look at Canada Post's tracking record, the item was clearly in Thai Customs at that time.

Fast forward to last week. I try to list an item for sale, and eBay, what do I find? I can't do so because my account has been restricted! Apparently I need to reimburse YOU for my customer's purchase. This, despite the fact that when I look at Canada Post's tracking, it clearly shows that my customer has received the item in question. Frustrating, but easy enough to fix, I figure. So I go to your website and look for customer service. I can't find a phone number but there appear to be other options. Somewhere.

A round-a-bout search finally lands me at a window that looks promising. Apparently if I type in my question you will connect me with a customer support representative. I do so, and I get a button that says I can email if I need further help. Ok, I'll bite. I send an email.

Days go by. No response. So I send another email. And wait. And then I send another. I've lost count of how many emails you haven't responded to, eBay. But finally, 4 days ago, I did manage to connect with a customer support person on eBay chat.

Now, let me suggest, eBay, that when I connect to chat and the window pops up informing me that there are 19 customer ahead of me and I can expect to wait 56 minutes, that make me a little squirrelly. I'm sure you can appreciate that I have better things to do with my day than wait to clear my eBay account. When I leave the chat window open and it takes almost 6 hours before I'm finally connected to a person, however, that's just plain and simple wrong. I love the recurring message that says my question is important to you. If it's so important, then why not hire a few more minimum wage-or-less off-shore telephone representatives? It's not like you can't afford it!

So finally it looks like Mary C.M. might be able to sort out my problems. She seems very helpful, although it does take her 5 minutes to pull up my account and at least 3 minutes to answer me each time I type something. So after 40-odd minutes of investigating the problem Mary C.M. starts to walk me through fixing my account.

And then, eBay, my internet connection drops. After almost 7 hours of being connected to you trying to get my account back in order, I lose the connection. All is lost.

So tell me, eBay, how do YOU think your customer support is?