Richard,

You cite some very interesting and valid points.

Sometimes I try to put myself in eBay's shoes and think what it must be like
to try to discern truth from noise. It's probably not easy. However, IMHO,
they don't want to be an arbitrator and take a "wash our hands" approach to
most problems.

I've encountered real weakness among the 200 or so transactions that I've
made there. For example, eBay requires that you wait 30 days to file a
formal complaint, but PayPal won't give you a refund after 30 days! Nice
way to avoid giving refunds . . .

In another case, I paid for some stuff from a "Power User." They never
shipped the item and lied every time I contacted them. Of course I gave
them negative feedback, and they simply retaliated, ruining my perfect
score. As a buyer my only obligation is too pay, which I did within 24
hours. Like you, I became quite annoyed with the boilerplate responses and
the "we won't do anything" attitude.

A few years ago I was VP for a new software company. The management team
was unusually bright (myself excepted, perhaps). However, they wanted all
transactions to be internet based with no contact number for presales or
problem calls. I managed to convince them otherwise.

I'm afraid the trend now for companies is to distance themselves from the
customer, and eBay is a perfect example of this folly.

The very nature of the internet encourages this from a cost perspective.
The net levels the playing field to where the key consideration for most
people is price alone. If a business wants to compete, they usually can't
afford to have a great customer service staff. People want the lowest price
on anything including customer service and don't grasp that good service has
a real cost. This doesn't excuse eBay from their unfriendly policies but
unfortunately they aren't alone in this bad behavior.

Off of soapbox for the moment . . .


Jon