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The "Black Hole" of Trust & Safety, eBay MUST Close It Now
Posted by David White at 6/26/2008 8:19 AM and is filed under Ebay,editorial,eBay Live,iBusinessLogic.com 
Our associate Scott Pooler of iBusinessLogic.com and his client Cornerstone Supply have become just one of the latest victims of the BLACK HOLE of eBay's Trust and Safety department. In his Trading Assistant Journal blog, Scott details his experience in the past few days with eBay's Customer Support.
The "BLACK HOLE" of eBay's customer support and more importantly the Trust & Safety department is legendary and notorious. The canned responses that come from CS and T&S leave the user few alternatives. There is no phone number to call unless you are a PowerSeller, no reliable immediate way to resolve issues that effect peoples livelyhood. This BLACK HOLE simply tells users that their issues will be addressed usually within 24-72 hours. Quite often it take much much longer.
I brought this exact issue up with eBay managers in a "Bloggers Meeting" at eBay Live in Chicago. I told those attending that when eBay T&S contemplates or takes action against a seller, there MUST be a way for those affected to deal with the situation, get an explanation, and correct, if they can the problem IMMEDIATELY! The 24-72 hour response is simply not acceptable in todays ecommerce environment. In this meeting I asked why, if T&S has a concern can they not contact the seller by phone prior to taking action? In it's current form, T&S acts as judge and jury without the chance for a defense or explanation. Whatever happened to due process? Are eBay sellers considered guilty until proven innocent?
I completely understand the need to move quickly when there is a perceived threat to protect the buyers on the site. I commend eBay for their efforts to make a safer buyer experience. I understand that there needs to be a balancing act, protecting the buyers, but they also must do everything in their power to ensure that actions taken against a seller are fair, just, and more importantly expediously dealt with. When eBay takes a unilateral action that effects or limits a person's or businesses livelyhood, there MUST be immediate recourse for those affected.
Lorrie Norrington implored the attendees in one of the eBay Live sessions to "give us a chance". (paraphrasing)
What remains to be seen is what if anything eBay will do to fill the 'BLACK HOLE" of CS and T&S and how fast they will do this.
POST SCRIPT: A reader left several comments here in a manifesto that was also posted for a time on Randy Smythes's blog MyBlogUtopia. I too have decided to remove these comments as there is no credible evidence to the claims made. Let me state that this blog is an opportunity for me to share my thoughts and news on ecommerce and factual incidents that are relevent. My readers can provide comments based on their feelings or facts.
The "BLACK HOLE" of eBay's customer support and more importantly the Trust & Safety department is legendary and notorious. The canned responses that come from CS and T&S leave the user few alternatives. There is no phone number to call unless you are a PowerSeller, no reliable immediate way to resolve issues that effect peoples livelyhood. This BLACK HOLE simply tells users that their issues will be addressed usually within 24-72 hours. Quite often it take much much longer.
I brought this exact issue up with eBay managers in a "Bloggers Meeting" at eBay Live in Chicago. I told those attending that when eBay T&S contemplates or takes action against a seller, there MUST be a way for those affected to deal with the situation, get an explanation, and correct, if they can the problem IMMEDIATELY! The 24-72 hour response is simply not acceptable in todays ecommerce environment. In this meeting I asked why, if T&S has a concern can they not contact the seller by phone prior to taking action? In it's current form, T&S acts as judge and jury without the chance for a defense or explanation. Whatever happened to due process? Are eBay sellers considered guilty until proven innocent?
I completely understand the need to move quickly when there is a perceived threat to protect the buyers on the site. I commend eBay for their efforts to make a safer buyer experience. I understand that there needs to be a balancing act, protecting the buyers, but they also must do everything in their power to ensure that actions taken against a seller are fair, just, and more importantly expediously dealt with. When eBay takes a unilateral action that effects or limits a person's or businesses livelyhood, there MUST be immediate recourse for those affected.
Lorrie Norrington implored the attendees in one of the eBay Live sessions to "give us a chance". (paraphrasing)
What remains to be seen is what if anything eBay will do to fill the 'BLACK HOLE" of CS and T&S and how fast they will do this.
POST SCRIPT: A reader left several comments here in a manifesto that was also posted for a time on Randy Smythes's blog MyBlogUtopia. I too have decided to remove these comments as there is no credible evidence to the claims made. Let me state that this blog is an opportunity for me to share my thoughts and news on ecommerce and factual incidents that are relevent. My readers can provide comments based on their feelings or facts.
Dave,
Thanks for following up and echoing my sentiments about the communications problems with eBay. We appreciate your and all of your readers (and Radio Show listeners) support.
Hopefully someone at eBay will understand that living in the lurch, with no information is an impossible situation for small businesses trying to explore the opportunities eBay wishes to present them.
Trust & Safety is an oxymoron in most peoples eyes and it will remain so until someone at eBay cleans up the communications situation.
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Trust & Safety is a huge problem on Ebay. This team is mocking on some the best Ebayers. i have evidences to prove my words. it seems to me they are kind of sadists. who hired these arrogant, sick, ambitious people? how not normal people can run The most important department on Ebay??! They are the only judge there. i was 6 years power seller with 100 % and they start targeting me for 3 years. then simply keep mocking on me all the way. they are simply criminals . how we can get rid of them from Ebay? they are out control. they never had independent inspections to check how they remove or close accounts. and so on. no control there at all. i tried to contact some of executives but they blocked all my emails and letters. who can help to rid of them. they are disgrace of Ebay !!
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Thank you for highlighting this. It is not a new problem. Unsurprisingly eBay's communication system with T & S suffers from the same issues as customer service. This is the system sellers will soon be compelled to use to service THEIR customers, the all important buyers. Is anybody thinking in San Jose?
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eBay CS and T&S support people are notorious for their index card responses. It isn't new and I've yet to see any acknowledgement from any eBay staff member that they are working to improve on this. Are eBay employing agency or temp staff as their first tier support workers?
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Actually the trust on e-bay is removed due to some fraud sellers, who sells duplicate (fake) products of reputed brands like last month when i brought a Kingston pendrive from e-bay , the seller claimed that its origional , but it was fake. !!
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I was power seller on Ebay for 6 years. 99.8 % feedback over 5000. Trust and safety do what they want on Ebay!! they have never had an independent inspection and all department is out control. They closed me and then opened my account 19 times for last 15 months. and i can not sell there with my name and my huge feedback. they are simply mocking on some power sellers like me ! now i know who stands behind this team. this is David PRIDE. THIS MAN BRING ALL PROBLEMS TO SELLERS. IF I SHOW WHAT HE DID FOR ME SOME MAY SAY ITS IMPOSSIBLE IN OUR DAYS. HAVING THIS MAN IN TRUST AND SAFETY DEPARTMENT MANY SELLERS WILL HAVE A PROBLEM EVEN IF THEY NEVER VIOLATED A RULE ! THIS TEAM HAS Symptom SNOBBERY MIXED WITH PARANOIA AND SADISM. THEY HURT SOME SELLERS AND THEY DO IT JUST IN SPITE . I TRIED TO CONTACT TO EBAYS BIG MAN BUT David PRIDE BLOCK ALL MY ATTEMPTS. WHO HIRED SUCH NOT NORMAL PEOPLE ? THEY ARE ACTING TO THEIR PERSONAL CONCERNS . IF THEY WORK FOR EBAY THEY WOULD NEVER CLOSED Account TO SELLER WHO PAID SUCH HIGH FEES AND WHO MADE EBAY WHAT IT IS NOW. WHO CAN HELP IN THIS SITUATION? HOW MAN LIKE David PRIDE CAN RUN AND EVEN BE VICE PRESIDENT TRUST AND SAFETY IF HE IS SICK PERSON AND HE NEEDS TO VISIT THE DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
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Ebay's Trust & Safety Department is a farce.For whatever reason, I spoke with real individuals several times on the phone. They live in an ignorant bubble & spout the party line "we are only a venue".Like the rest of ebay, they are broken & unfixable. It's a big money sucking machine that's no fun to play with anymore.
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the biggest problem on trust and safety is DAVID PRIDE . VICE PRSEDENT OF THIS DEPARTMENT ALL TROUBLES COME FROM HIM
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Thanks for sharing this info. This will be helpful to me since i ma planning on opening an account in aBay
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