A Great Customer Service Report: Ebay

In December I decided that it was a good idea to finally post a few items I've had in my "to sell" pile on Ebay.  I mean, I am just a feast or famine kind of girl.  I procrastinate until I decide to do every single thing on my to do list at the same time and drive myself insane. 

See...I need big lessons on how to better balance my life!

One of the items, my highest value item, sold for more than I ever anticipated.  Wow!  At the last minute, a bidder bid it way up and won by $10.  Merry Christmas to me.

And then an hour or two later, Bidder emailed me to say they had no intention of paying and sorry Charlie.

What the heck!  You can't do that, can you?  Why would you bid at all??

Bidder told me to offer it to the next person.

I was LIVID!

In the spirit of Christmas, I did offer it to the next person.  Who did not want it anymore. 

But Ebay no longer lets you leave negative feedback.  You can only file a case regarding an unpaid item.  And the directions regarding how to do this and when are very, very confusing.  It "highly suggests" you let Ebay do "automatic close" of the cases.  OK, I enabled that.

And the other night, I was told it was closed.  But nothing more. 

And on top of that, I was still being billed, with threats of a late fee for non-payment, for the item.  And it was not like a $2 bill. 

So confused and refusing to pay this super high bill, I finally just called Ebay today.  And I am so thankful that I did.

It seems that I didn't even open or close the case the right way.  Which is a negative towards Ebay because I did what they directed me to do and have checked it every few days for the past month.  They need to revamp their written directions.  But I will say they redeemed themselves in the customer service department.

The gal who took my call was awesome.  She tried to explain what I did wrong until we both felt I sort of understood.  And she fixed the fee because she could see that I did do something, even though the date was now a few days past when the fee should be waived.  But she could clearly tell that I thought I had taken the required steps.  She suggested (and I did) I stay on the line until she could see on her end that the fee was removed.  I mean, this was seriously the best customer service I have experienced in a very long time.

So even though Ebay was confusing to maneuver and I am bitter that I cannot leave negative feedback for this jerk bidder, I am very relieved that the fee was ultimately waived by an awesomesauce customer service rep today.