[geeks] Good techniques for communicating with eBay?

[Dan Duncan]

Do you have the original activation email?  Activate it and then cancel it
or change the email address.

Gmail is how I found out that some of the slower Dan Duncans in the world
don't know their correct email addresses.  I've gotten sensitive documents,
work schedules, trip invites, dinner invites, wedding invites, etc.  One of
my namesakes periodically falls short of cash and applies for a bunch of
payday loans, presumably because he doesn't hear back from them because he
uses the wrong email address.   It goes without saying not to apply for
payday loans online because although their websites may be secure they
include way too much personal info in the clear when they email back.  They
also sell your address to a slew of spammers.

Dan Duncan.  Even my henchmen think I'm crazy.

On Jun 3, 2010 3:33 PM, <nate at portents.com> wrote:

eBay has a design issue with the way they allow people to open up
accounts, and it has resulted in one of my email addresses getting 'held'
in a non-registered member account for two years.  I've spent the last few
weeks trying every eBay support avenue to get this resolved, with no
progress.  I was wondering if anyone here had any experiences or
suggestions on better ways to deal with this?

>From what I can tell, there are only two ways to contact eBay support:

1) Online web chat.  Most responses are canned (I suspect the people may
be clicking pre-programmed response buttons for a lot of what they say, and
they can't seem to handle any situation outside of a few narrow cases,
making me almost wonder if it's really an elaborate Eliza-type software
program running it...)

2) Call them.  Scripted responses, but not as bad, however still can't
cope with unusual situations like eBay design flaws, no possibility of call
escalation, will only put you on hold for 20+ minutes while they supposedly
talk to someone in another department, which will result in either false
promises that your situation will be resolved and you will receive followup
contact (that won't happen) or you'll be told there is nothing that can be
done.

(The eBay support forums are not even staffed by anyone at eBay as it
turns out.)

The specific problem I'm experiencing is that eBay allows someone (let's
call them Person A) to begin to open up a new account with someone else's
(Person B's) email address, as long as that email address isn't currently
associated with another ebay account.  The account activation email will go
to Person B's email address, and if Person A doesn't correct the email
address, and Person B does not activate the account, the account will just
stay in the ebay system and be listed as "Not a registered user" next to
the account standing.  eBay apparently makes no distinctions between users
who were once registered and have had their registration revoked vs.
accounts which have never been activated.  eBay does nothing to remove
accounts which have never been activated.  On top of that, eBay has no
mechanism for correcting the wrong email address other than if the person
who opened the account asks for a change.

In this situation I am Person B.

I have a gmail account that I got back when gmail first started, and it
has no numerals in the gmail account name, and as a result, many many
people mistakenly put in my gmail address mistakenly for all sorts of
things, and every few days I get emails destined for Nicole or Nancy or
Norman or some other person with the same first initial last name.

Two years ago someone started to sign up for eBay using my gmail address,
I received the activation email, did nothing with it and hoped that person
would correct their error.  Periodically I'd check the status of their
account on eBay, and it always said, "Not a registered user", and a few
weeks ago I checked if my gmail account was considered in use by eBay (I
wasn't using it with eBay), and it was.  My first round of support with
eBay did verify that the account someone started to open had my gmail
address associated with it, however at every turn eBay is refusing to
remove it/fix it (and apparently won't contact the person who opened the
account to get authorization).

eBay's support scripts instruct their staff to:

a) start by assuming that the customer contacting eBay has an
old/forgotten about eBay account, and try to get them to 'remember' it was
theirs by quizzing them about the city/state associated with the account
and whether they used to live there

b) quiz the customer about whether they let anyone else use the email
account in question, and thus open up an eBay account with their email
account, and/or quiz the customer about whether they are somehow related to
or associated with the person who opened up the account using their email
address

c) tell the customers that email addresses get recycled, and that my email
address was probably recycled and had been in legitimate use by this other
account in the past

It doesn't matter how emphatically I tell eBay support people that none of
these apply, or explain that my email address was never recycled, and when
I offer to email them the account activation email I received two years
ago, they don't respond.

If anyone has any tips on how to deal with this, I'd be really grateful.
My six attempts have been nothing but pointless dialog circles.

- Nate
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