Is Ebay a Remarkable Communicator or WHAT?

[Time Travel Warning – From the Archives]

This little gem dates back to 2011—yep, 14 years ago. I was selling odds and ends on eBay (still am, now under RemoteYardSale, if you’re curious), and I got stuck dealing with a buyer who somehow “won” an auction but didn’t think paying was part of the deal. What followed was this jaw-dropping email from eBay support.

At the time, I figured it was just outsourced customer service gone sideways. But in hindsight? It smells a lot like one of eBay’s early, glitchy attempts at an automated bot response. Either way, it’s worth preserving for the sheer grammatical chaos.

Enjoy the cringe. Original post here untouched and just as baffling as ever!

 

As sort of a hobby, I tinker with selling on eBay. It's relatively fun. I get to lighten the household load and the stuff goes for considerably more than it would at a yard sale.

Occasionally, I have the basic non-payer. These come in the form of people who somehow manage to win an auction "accidentally",  want an item shipped BEFORE they can pay, or they simply do not communicate at all, which includes not paying.

Now, being in the communications business, I was surprised, mortified, and really, horrified when I received this verified email from eBay regarding a recent non-payment issue I had with a buyer. The writing is so terrible that I completely dismissed the fact that somebody in Nigeria was trying to rip me off.

With so many people out of work and so many people (myself included) looking for work in communications, HOW can eBay justify having writing like this go external?

________________________________________________________________

From:         eBay Customer Support - rswebhelp <rswebhelp@ebay.com>

Subject:  Re: FR%T00073 Buyer Check or Money Order

Date:       March 6, 2011 9:45:08 PM PST

To:            Duane Conder <dconder@mac.com>

Hello Duane,

Thank you for writing to eBay regarding to your buyer who wants you to
shipped the item before paying. Duane, I appreciate your effort in contacting us about this issue and I'm glad to assist you with this and by the way, good to see that you've been a member of eBay for quite some time now. We value your business with us.

Now to address your concern and for your future reference, I would
suggest that you need not to shipped the item if your buyer wants you to
shid the item first before he/she can pay for the item as this might be
dodgy buyer. Please understand that the correct process of transaction
in eBay is for the buyer to pay for the item first before the seller can
send the item.

Moving forward, after I have reviewed your account on file I could see
here that your Final Value Fee as well as your listing fees for this
item has been credited back into your account.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Regards,
Rich Q.
eBay Customer Support Team

__________________________________________________________

Whether Rich Q is a person in a support center in a far-away land or a 'bot on a server, there's clearly some training (or programming) to be done. English Grammar, syntax, spelling. All the basics. And eBay, seriously?...

You're a multibillion dollar corporation and this is the best you can do to quell my concerns?!

 Again I stress to you, eBay, there's a lot of great communicators out of work.

Maybe it's time to hire a few.

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