eBay's customer service leaves a lot to be desired (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: BumpyBump

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	17/09/09 (222 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can sell your own stuff

Disadvantages: They tell lies and are completely incompetent

I have been a user of eBay for several years. Everything ran smoothly until one day when I received a system email saying that they had a record of a new account being set up by someone who was using my bank details. I emailed eBay to chase it up and they replied saying that there was no problem and assured me that no-one else had used my bank account details for their eBay account.

Of course the inevitable happened and on New Year's Eve eBay attempted to withdraw a Direct Debit for £12,500 from my account as a result of someone on eBay fraudulently using my bank details on their account. I didn't have the money so nothing was stolen, but this showed as a withdrawal on my account for a few days (until it was confirmed as 'unpaid') and during that time I was unable to withdraw any money from my account and had to borrow from my parents. I then received a £38 bank charge from my bank for an unpaid Direct Debit. So I contacted eBay to explain what happened (there are no phone numbers on their website by the way, only email addresses, so I was unable to ever actually speak to someone) and to get a refund for my bank charge which was all their fault and I was told that they hadn't tried to take the money from my account and that it was nothing to do with them (lies!). I insisted that it did and even had the bank statement to show that it was eBay that had tried to withdraw it. They asked me to send it to them as evidence so I emailed it and was then advised that they can't accept attachments by email (what?! Why?) so I had to fax it. This is where the fun really started. I faxed the bank statements as well as the email correspondence and received a proof of delivery from the fax machine. eBay said that never received it. I faxed it again (and again got a receipt). eBay said they never received it. I faxed it for a third time and they still claimed they hadn't received it. I decided to post it and guess what? They said they never received it. I posted another copy and made sure it was recorded. Finally they acknowledge receipt (the whole process took eight weeks). And do you know what they said? They said they wouldn't refund the money as the charge was from my bank and not them and if someone had used my account fraudulently then it was the bank's responsibility to refund me. What I want to know is why didn't they just tell me that in the first place instead of keep insisting that I send them proof of the bank charge? That decision did not rest on them receiving my evidence so I am certain that I was being fobbed off by some 'customer service' person who didn't want to have to deal with it.

The upshot is that I did finally get my refund from the bank, but I made eBay very aware of the fact that I was disgusted at a) their initial denial that someone had used my bank details on their own eBay account and b) making me go round the houses to get some information to them that they didn't even need. I have now boycotted eBay.

Summary: eBay is fine unless you need to actually deal with customer services then it'll all go wrong