Open Letter to eBay; Poor User Support.

[Geek-9pm]

Might be this is off topic, Not sure.

An open letter to eBay.
And to other big firms that are following the same business plan.

The first and last rule in good business is attention given to the customer. Some of the biggest firms in the industry are not following this standard. Instead, they are causing users to wait through a series of questions and answers before they have a chance to talk to a real person. And then after that, they still can't talk to a real person.

Yes, I know that there is a protocol that have to be followed. But there are some problems that are so obviously needy that it should not be necessary to send somebody through a series of 20 questions.

There is a tendency of many individuals and businesses to play a game of bait and switch. They offer something that appears to be easy and desirable and then they make it confusing and lacking functionality.

The end-user ought to have some way of communicating with eBay and telling them that a number of users are adopting policies that are misleading and unfair to the users.

Here is one example of this practice. Some vendors on eBay are offering web hosting and they claim is unlimited.

That is, of course, ridiculous. It is one thing to say that something is not metered and something else to say it's unlimited. Unlimited implies that there is never any limits. But in the case of web hosting, that is not so. Disk drives have just so much capacity. Network connections have just so much capacity. Saying something is unlimited only causes confusion in the mind of the end-user.

And it would be more truthful to say what the limits really are, even if the limits are not strictly enforced. Surely there must be a way of saying something has a practical limit but the limit is seldom enforced and occasional overages of the limit will not count against the user. Is that so hard?

The problem with calling something unlimited is that everybody can call it unlimited. Somebody might have a server that has the limits of say 500 GB. It would be unfair and dishonest to try to sell that service to 100 different users and tell each one of them that the disk storage is unlimited. Do the math. 500 GB divided by 100 users is not unlimited.

There are other things I could complain about, but I thought I would focus on just this one thing. Calling something by the wrong name, saying it is unlimited when it really means more like unlettered or undefined or not enforced or not observed.

Now here's the bad part. There is no easy way for user to contact eBay and say this is a bad practice. If I give a negative report on one of the vendors that does this, I should have to also give the same report on all of vendors at. Just because everybody does it doesn't mean that it's right.

As for me, as the user, if I start getting negative feedback to users I will become blackballed and nobody will want to do business with me. I'm Artie got a message from one vendor that he doesn't want you do business with me, as if it were my fault that he is dishonest. (I did no know how he knew me.)

Please, please you big business managers. Let your users have a way to talk back to you so you don't have to go somewhere else and post a rant like this. I think maybe I'll put this on Facebook. 

Microphone off.   

[BC_Programmer]

The end-user ought to have some way of communicating with eBay and telling them that a number of users are adopting policies that are misleading and unfair to the users.

Well, There is a "Report Item" link on every listing page, as described here.

Here is one example of this practice. Some vendors on eBay are offering web hosting and they claim is unlimited.

That is, of course, ridiculous. It is one thing to say that something is not metered and something else to say it's unlimited. Unlimited implies that there is never any limits. But in the case of web hosting, that is not so. Disk drives have just so much capacity. Network connections have just so much capacity. Saying something is unlimited only causes confusion in the mind of the end-user.

Caveat Empor. You can find eBay Listings, online advertisements, Television advertisements, billboards, and so on for all sorts of stupid crap. "Essential Oils" marketed as curing migraines or headaches or all sorts of things, "Magical" copper bracelets which restore your Chi or whatever and give you increased vitality or virility, "Energy Crystals" which do much the same, etc.

Sure, you can report the listings you find on eBay. They'll just spring up again. Why? *because people are buying this crap* You know what you do when somebody comes up to you and says They "paid $100 for a copper bracelet that emits and auric force field that protects their Megachi from the dangers of the constellation Ebola? You *laugh in their face*. I mean, unless they had like terminal cancer, then you would be annoyed at the people trying to prey on their desperation- but either way, you certainly don't blame the marketplace that allows it to exist.

People are responsible for what they buy, and sellers are responsible for their listings. In the case of eBay, if something is listed misleadingly or incorrectly, you can get a refund. eBay is VERY buyer friendly, (perhaps even to a fault). This includes people selling snake oil cures or promising the impossible through everyday things. Did that essential Orange Oil not Cure your epilepsy or resolve your struggles with arthritis? Report it. Get a refund. Done. Enough reports, and the seller folds and creates a new storefront anyway.

There are sellers who don't even SELL items- they list high-demand items, never ship it, and gain from the 1% who don't know what to do. Sellers that sell scam crap (eithe rreal or completely fake) don't last long and they subsist entirely on the people who decide to vent on other forums instead of actually opening a case with eBay regarding their scam order.

As for me, as the user, if I start getting negative feedback to users I will become blackballed and nobody will want to do business with me. I'm Artie got a message from one vendor that he doesn't want you do business with me, as if it were my fault that he is dishonest. (I did no know how he knew me.)

Maybe he felt sorry for the fact that you *still wanted to do business with him*. I mean, come on! It's like complaining about a restaurant because the hostess and a chef played hot potato with your baby, they learned your daughter was arachnophobic so they "accidentally" gave her a plate with a tarantula on it, and the lettuce was wilted and the chicken was overcooked, and (worst of all) their wine list didn't have any good cabernet, and then complaining that you were banned.  Should you care? Did you truly want to go back? Same in this case. You've already figured out why you shouldn't do business with them and now you are sour because they won't let you. Of course they won't. May as well start complaining that 419 scammers stopped returning your messages when you found out about their little game.

[patio]

All he needs to do is grasp the concept of eBay to get it...

You did a great job of illustrating it...but i fear it;ll fall on deaf ears

[DaveLembke]

Maybe he felt sorry for the fact that you *still wanted to do business with him*. I mean, come on! It's like complaining about a restaurant because the hostess and a chef played hot potato with your baby, they learned your daughter was arachnophobic so they "accidentally" gave her a plate with a tarantula on it,

Thanks for the very creative analogy BC... Laughed at this one. I like your style of writing here, you have even made me laugh at some of my own stuff here with looking from it from a different angle or creative yet to point analogy. 

[Geek-9pm]

Yeah,  mice comparison...

I mean, come on! It's like complaining about a restaurant because the hostess and a chef played hot potato with your baby, they learned your daughter was agoraphobic so they "accidentally" gave her a plate with a tarantula on it, and the lettuce was wilted and the chicken was overcooked, and (worst of all) their wine list didn't have any good cabernet, and then complaining that you were banned.

An arachnophobic ?
Who is agoraphobic?

People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbor spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. If arachnophobics see a spider, they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome the panic attack that is often associated with their phobia. Some people scream, cry, have emotional outbursts, experience trouble breathing, sweat, have heart palpitations, or even faint when they come in contact with an area near spiders or their webs. In some extreme cases, even a picture or a realistic drawing of a spider can trigger intense fear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobia
Now we need a new word about being traumatized by eBay shooing.
The really is a section on eBay about this:
http://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Traumatized-After-Scamming-Buyer-Worth-Selling-Again-Help/td-p/27144082
But the above is abut a Seller who got ripped off, not a buyer.
Even so, it shows that eBay can be a dangerous place to live.

Thanks for letting my rant.  I should make me feel batter.

EDIT: Please tell me, if you know, how can I contact eBay directly.The seller just makes excuses and does not fix the problem. Just getting my money back is not enough. The vendor should remove my domain name from his machine.  This creates a problem for me, the domain holder. If my domain gets put on a shared cluster and they do not take it off, I can not get hosting from anybody on that cluster. Or so it seems. I have tried setting up my domain on another server and I get an error message because the servers share IP address. It is not rare to have 200 or m,ore domains on one IPv4 thing. And  only a few vendors will let you know ahead of time what shared IPv4 they use. 

[camerongray]

Then you need to open a case with eBay. However, that's not how domains work, you manage the DNS settings for your domain through your domain registrar, you would just need to point the domain to another server, your web host cannot control what you can point the domain to.

I think the main issue here is buying web hosting on eBay, as I've explained before, the web hosts that advertise and sell their services through eBay are generally fly-by-night companies run by people with limited experience trying to make a quick buck.  They generally lack the knowledge to actually run shared hosting properly and when it goes wrong they can simply run off and start again. There's plenty of reputable, cheap web hosts out there, I see no need to use the eBay ones.  I'd even go as far as saying that a free plan from a well known web host would likely be more reliable than something from a random eBay seller.  It's hilariously easy to set up a web host and list on eBay with little to no knowledge, I could literally sit down and have a working web host running and advertising on eBay ready to accept customers (or victims?) within a couple of hours at a cost of under $20.

Put it this way, would you buy your broadband/cable/insurance from a seller on eBay?  I'd hope not!  Treat web hosting more like that, not like a product that you purchase one off which is what eBay is for.

[patio]

+ 1

[BC_Programmer]

Why did you change the segment of my post you quoted to say "Agoraphobic" instead of "Arachnophobic"

Please tell me, if you know, how can I contact eBay directly.The seller just makes excuses and does not fix the problem

There is a Report Item link on every listing. Use it.

And stop using cheap web hosting on eBay. I don't even know if I can emphasize that enough.

The vendor should remove my domain name from his machine.  This creates a problem for me, the domain holder. If my domain gets put on a shared cluster and they do not take it off, I can not get hosting from anybody on that cluster. Or so it seems. I have tried setting up my domain on another server and I get an error message because the servers share IP address. It is not rare to have 200 or m,ore domains on one IPv4 thing. And  only a few vendors will let you know ahead of time what shared IPv4 they use.

The Same IP is the same hosting provider.

You're trying to cancel and report one scammy ebay seller and have them take actions so you can setup with a web hosting provider at the same IP address. Which somehow involves your DNS in some way or something.

Think about it, why do you think the IPs are the same? Coincidence?

Do you think that this second eBay seller, who sells hosting for the same price and I expect has the exact same images to advertise their "unlimited" hosting, is going to give you a different experience?

They aren't. They are inevitably the same actual person or group of people who have innumerable alternative accounts. You aren't listening. You keep asking about reporting things to eBay. As mentioned there is a "Report Item" link. use Ctrl-F on the listing if you can't find it. Then Click it. There you go.

But eBay's policies aren't written with the classical "fool" in mind (classical in the sense of "Fools and Knaves"). That the Knaves moved online doesn't absolve the Fools of their responsibility to themselves. The buyer still assumes responsibility for their own choices.  E-mail providers aren't responsible for E-mail scams; Telephone companies aren't responsible for Microsoft Support Scammers. Regardless of any "checks and balances" a marketplace might put in place, a Fool and his money are soon parted- online, or otherwise. I'd guess that if there was such a method in place, you would very likely be ranting about how difficult eBay is making it to give money to the obviously trustworthy Dr. Vignitori in 'Minnesota' for his web hosting services.

If it helps, I seem to recall Bob Dylan had song lyrics specifically about not buying eBay web hosting. It went something like "How many cheap eBay web hosting providers must a man fight against, before he figures out they all suck?" or something like that.


I get the impression- particularly given your issues with Microsoft Support scammers previously, you may want to loop your "administrator" into these decisions more frequently because you are missing quite a number of obvious red flags. It seems like perhaps you are only seeing that there is a *chance* that what is being offered is completely legitimate, and latching onto that chance, assuming the marketplace surrounding the offer will somehow protect you if it's nonsense. That doesn't happen. The fool (again, the "classical" fool) will fight against any measures in place to protect them from 'knaves'.

[patio]

"The answer my friend...is blowin in the web...the answer is blowin in the web".

[Geek-9pm]

"Agoraphobic" instead of "Arachnophobic"
The spell check made me do it.

Well, I must be the classical fool. 
When people tell me things, I tend to believe what they say.
It is hard to break the habit.

Maybe others will red this and understand that there are some things hyu should not buy on eBay.  Web hosting is one.

[Geek-9pm]

Update:
The eBay terms require me to try and work with the vendor.
I got a web space that has WHM and cost only $8 for one year. Witt WHM I can resell some of the space and make a little money. Or so it would seem.

Now I could just forget the $8 and move on.
But it is the principle of the thing.
That vendor claims to have many satisfied customers. I doubt it.
Listen to this.
(To be read aloud.)
I got the web space and made a simple HTML page to tell the world that I  am '...under construction' and will have more later. The TOS says I can not have an empty page, unless it is under construction. OK. So I try FTP with  client I have used since I can remember, and it fails. No a password issue, it gets that far, but the connection is refused after that. (I can look at the LOG file and see.)

So, to comply with eBay rules, I contact the vendor via eBay message. He tells me, and I quote:

New message from: lakeshorehost (39Yellow Star)
Hello,

Please disable TLS security prior to connecting.

THank you

(End of read aloud.)
That is the actual quote from the message he gave me. Never, ever have I had anybody tell me to run off TLS before FTP.
 Is this normal?
Shall I ask for my $8 back?

Yes, I promise
-not to buy any more too cheap to be true stuff from eBay. 

[patio]

The bandwidth for this nonsensical rant probably cost you 8 Bucks...

[Geek-9pm]

The bandwidth for this nonsensical rant probably cost you 8 Bucks...

You have a point.   
Comcast has told me I already went over my 10000 GB limit for last month. It is just a matter of time that they will start charging me.
What I mean is, the web site is supposed to have unlimited everything. But if I wanted to upload and download as much as I could, I would go over my bandwidth. (How long does it take to do 1000 GB at 15Mbps?)
But I am not  going to try that