Long story short…paid ebay for fees on my sales 11/1, they cash check 11/7, it clears my bank 11/9. Ebay never applies teh funds to my account. I have emailed, chatted and faxed tehmn and gotten no where. ID suspended, now listed as no longer registered. They have my money but since they screwed up they want me to pay again, the online help is useless…anyone have ideas on how to resolve ? Any similar experience ? Please don’t suggest paypal, I don’t want the id theft exposure and I don’t trust tehm with that after the mess they made with my recent payment. This is only $48 but I am so furious at this point I don’t want to let them default to winning on this.
My Account had near perfect feedback and I still have some of my slotcar collection to liquidate but if the hassle is not resolved I guess I can walk away and sell the balance off message boards and other alternatives.
I’m going to assume you’ve read the page about Reinstating Your Account. If you’ve already contacted them, I’m not sure what else you can do but keep at it until you finally get an answer.
Does your account status show how much you owe?
Viewing your account status
The easiest way to check the amount you owe and see the last four months of activity is to view your account status page. If your account has been suspended for some time and the activity is older than four months, you can view fees incurred over the last 18 months by clicking the “View invoices” link at the top of the Account Status page.
If the check cleared, the funds were withdrawn from your account and it shows that you still have an outstanding balance, it sounds like they didn’t credit the funds properly to your account.
That would frustrating to lose your account, especially with the excellent feedback record it has, due to a data entry error. I hope you’re able to get it resolved.
Cashing the check and not applying the funds is exactly what appears to have happened. I tried on line help again and I am about #50 in line…I looked them up in San Jose and they dump you on hold as quick as they can. I just got done holding 40 minutes before I hung up. I email chatted with them on 11/20 and was told I had to fax info to them before anything could be done. Did that and got no reply, I did get someone on live chat this morning, gave tem the same security info that I provided on 11/20 and they say it does not match my account. Person on line refused to get teh 11/20 service rep on line, refused to call me and refussed to get a supervisor. Excellent customer service. Fax number where I sent info to does not go to customer support, goes somewhere else, where they won’t tell me. How usefull I am so glad they have all these corporate processes down so well, it doesn’t matter if they accomplish anything so long as they stick to the rules. I suppose if they relaize I am unhappy they will send me some little survey attached to a mission statement and consider it fixed.
Your check cleared, they cashed it (you’ve got a signature or stamp on the back of the check), and won’t follow through on the deal? As I’m assuming you mailed the check you might have a case for mail fraud. Especially if it was a Money Order.
My rule of thumb: on eBay I use Paypal with a credit card b/c the creditcard company usually has some tough anti fraud policies. I get the $$ credited back, no harm to me, and Paypal goes on their butt! I know it’s a bit late but USPS MO’s are better than a personal check esp. if mailed b/c words like mail fraud tend to get people moving.
Contact SJ consumer fraud and/or California Attorney, General’s office with a copy of all relevant documentation especially copies of both sides of the check.
Let ebay know that you have done this.
Also tell ebay that you will be creating a web page and chat room entries detailing your experience in resolving this matter. Tell them that the story can go two ways: EBAY was very helpful and professional- use them OR Ebay is a haven for con artists - stay far away.
Do some research and send email and letters to executives. The best place is the secretary to the president or secretary to the VP of marketing, yes marketing, if you can find their addresses. Try to figure out their email address scheme from published addresses. ie: First initial followed by seven letters of last name.
They may be so big that they don’t care but it’s worth a shot.
Another reason why I would use PayPal or a credit card because then the payment is done electronically and the process is tied directly to your account. There’s less chance for an error that way. Using a check or a money order means that a person has to manually enter in the payment for the correct account. That’s not considering the payment coupon being illegible for whatever reason, showing up mangled, etc and the data entry person having to process a certain quota per hour or day. At least electronically there’s also a better trail or record of your payment. Going from the place where your funds are payed from to eBay they could track down transaction numbers. Whereas with manual entry, you have no way of finding out what batch or transaction number it was entered under so it makes it harder for them to figure out to which account your payment got credited to.
I think the best course of action is to continue to pursue it through the customer service or account services (whatever it’s called). If that doesn’t help then try a consumer fraud or the attorney’s general office to see if they can help.
As for threating them with bad publicity, with as large as eBay is and the number of people they deal with, threatening them isn’t going to accomplish anything but waste your own time and get you even more angry with them. It’s all been done before, spamming newsgroups & forums, setting up anti-eBay websites. One more person, website isn’t going to affect them.
If you do send letters, whether to eBay or some of the other places suggested, your only chance is to make them firm but respectful: calling them names may feel good, but they’re not going to respond well.
Document everything clearly. Use a timeline, or bullet points. Be as brief as possible while supplying all the proper information, especially a photocopy of the back of your check.
I am suiming the person you sent the money too, is claiming not to have gotten the money.
And put in a claim against you.
So aside from this likely taking a few days to resolve. meaning if you have proof of the check and on bank statement, unless you sent money order. than you would have stub from that.
If you paid via pay-pal, then would also have that proof also.
It is always good to have a track and confirm when sending payment buy mail. either the person you sent the check is claiming not to have gotten it.
Or someone at e-bay has other reasons, aside from what you mentioned.
Usually, you are allowed a certain amount of time to respond and resolve the issue. Prior to being suspended.
sue them in small claims court, someone has to show up or you win and will get a judgment, the time it takes them to send a respondent will cost them a bundle and if they dont show it can prove to be a real enbarisment!
let me see if I understand what you are saying here. You paid your listing fee and seller fees by check, correct? How did they let you set up an account without a CC.
Are you sure Ebay cashed the check? or did someone intercept it and cash it in their name? Just asking, because it happens a lot. One of my tenants had her electric shut off for just this reason. 3 months in a row someone intercepted her payment and got the checks cashed at some check cashing service.
If you have the canceled check, send them a copy of it with all account #'s pertaining to this with a registered letter explaining what went wrong. if this is truely a ligitimate mistake on their part I have to believe they will correct it. Remember, they have customers (sellers) that number in the millions and for every ligitimate mistake that happens I am sure there are several that are people trying to pull one over on them.
Also, as far as ID theft goes… sending checks is very dangerous, as most checks have full addresses on them as well as the routing # and account # to your checking account printed right on them.
This sort of thing is not uncommon with large operations receiving cash or checks (anything that a human has to process). More likely than not they applied the funds to somebody else’s account. It is not fraud unless they intended to defraud you of the $48, which would be next to impossible to prove and the local authorities aren’t going to be a lot of help.
Make a copy of both sides of your cleared check. Attach a letter describing the mess in some detail and whatever invoice or statement from them showing your account number and the breakdown of the amount due. Keep the letter professional and state what you are trying to do (get the account mess straightend out and your standing restored). Send the letter to them either certified or with some other deliver confirmation from the post office.
Your eventual recourse if they simply refuse to correct the error is a complaint to the BBB or action in small claims court. Seems to me you want two things: the payment acknowledged and properly applied and your good standing restored. $48 is probably not worth the aggravation of small claims court, but your ability to use their service might be. It is a reasonable position and if presented reasonably, even if they have no idea what happened to the $48 the supporting documentation will probably get a positive response.
In the world of email, faxes and phone calls, a well-written letter along with supporting documentation will still give the most bureaucracies a pause. People who take the time to put things in writing in a tangible form are usually not going away.