AuctionCut

I have purchased about 100 items through ebay and up to now I have been happy with the service they have provided. However, the last transaction has left me very angry.

After about a week, the item concerned had not turned up. I checked "My Ebay">Won. It was not in the list. I checked my email buffer and there it was - I had won the item and a check on paypal showed that I had paid for it immediately.

I thought I would contact the seller. I clicked on the "contact seller" in the email and got a window that said, in effect, this page not available. I clicked on the item description and got something similar.

Why had my purchase vanished from the ebay website?

So I thought I would ebay contact customer services to find out what was going on. Getting to talk to a human being was a real exercise. Googling for the phone number got a result but phoning this, I was told to phone another number. I did this and was told I needed a PIN number and I could only get this online and anyway, I should have phoned yet another number which I was not given. I tried to get a PIN online but instead found myself in "keyboard" correspondence with a real person. I don't have an exact transcript of the conversation but the gist of it is as follows.

Me: Why does my "won" item not appear in my "my ebay">won list?
Ebay: Ebay have decided to remove this information.
Me: Is there a problem with the supplier?
Ebay: That is a confidential matter between ebay and the seller
Me: Will I receive my items?
Ebay: We do not hold the goods. You will have to contact the supplier.
Me: How do I do that, you have removed all of the relevant links.
Ebay: Send us an email and we will send you the address in reply.

At this point I gave up pointing out that I wanted to make a formal complaint about the way ebay has prevented all access to my information and worse still not informed me that there might be a problem.

I can get the email address from my paypal transaction which I have done.

So dear punter, the point of my rant is this.....

1. If ebay have a problem with the seller, they immediately delete all information. It is up to you to remember that you made the transaction.
2. The "Won" list is really a list of won items less the ones that ebay have removed without telling you
3. They will give you no help whatsoever to resolve your sale and (effectively) do all they can to pretend that the seller and your transaction never existed.
4. Keep all relevant information

I think this is unacceptable behaviour by ebay. They are happy to forget the buyer, as they clean up their own act. I'm not saying that ebay are deliberately intending to cast you adrift completely but that is the effect of their actions.

Is my seller unscrupulous? I don't know and I probably never will. Perhaps he got hit by a bus.

Surely ebay should email you to say that "there might be a problem with your transaction, contact the seller and here, for your benefit, is the relevant information. And we are deleting the info from the web site"?

Is that too much to ask?

Hi peabrane,

It's great how you have turned something so horrific into something 'good' by sharing your experience with us.

Were you at least able to get your money back?

Hi Salehoo,

I'm in the process of contacting PayPal about this. The transaction was only about 2 weeks ago and PayPal's dispute period is 45 days. I'll give it another few days and give it a try. The seller will then have had a week to reply to my ultimatum.

Thanks for the interest

Hi peabrane,

It's sad that eBay has not really been of any real help on this one. But at least you have a pretty good idea on how to get to the bottom of this! I do hope you do..

All the best and do keep us posted

Hi Everyone,

Paypal are going to refund me. So at least I didn't lose out financially on the deal.