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Review 1/4/2011
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1. Privacy violation—no online notification provided during the account setup process that notifies new customers that extremely personal information will be obtained to verify identity, and no specification of the source of this personal information, as well as no explicit request during the process to obtain the customer’s consent prior to soliciting such personal information for the identity verification questions.
2. Discrimination—despite having spent several hours in providing all answers accurately to rigorous identity verification questions online and by phone to James at customer service (what felt more like an interrogation), I was singled out with an account suspension that took much more time and effort to reverse. I have perseverated over this for a while and cannot resolve in my mind why I was so singled out, other than I have a heavy accent to my spoken English which might signal to the listener that I am not native to this country. Perhaps I was singled out because I spoke my mind freely in the first phone call with James, where I voiced my concerns openly regarding the protection of my personal information and privacy, which I value highly. Every transaction I have attempted on ebay the past week has been frought with obstacles and hours of wasted time trying to deal with a tirade of inefficient suspensions/investigations/nonpayments/delays in listing. My wife herself (who grew up in the US) was disturbed at the treatment I have received from ebay.
3. Deceptive billing practices—the second time the iPad was listed, I was charged the listing fee even though the listing did not go live for at least 9 hours later. The listing fee was only 25 cents, but the amount is irrelevant. The fact that the ebay timer on my account was ticking for 9 hours of the 3-day auction, when in real time the iPad did not exist on their live website for sale, despite their email confirmation that it had listed, reveals a subversive level of dishonesty and complete disrespect for the customer.
4. Potential fraud—ebay created such a level of fear and distrust on my part regarding the actual security of my selling account, since I somehow managed to have the strange coincidence of two buyers in a row who purchased the same item in the exact same way as a Buy It Now purchase within hours of the listing going live, with no other bids or watchers, with multiple other identical iPads on ebay simultaneously going unsold for lower prices. I also managed to run into the unlikely coincidence that both buyers would request immediate invoices after the sale, then ignore my email replies and make no payment. The second buyer also made an email request for information related to my personal PayPal user email, which again struck suspicion. Despite ebay’s superficial appearance of rigorous account security, even to the point of potential customer privacy violations, this entire experience with the two buyers has left me with a less than secure or trustworthy impression of the entire selling process on the ebay website.
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