ebayincompetence1

Incredible ebay Incompetence

or "Land of Oz" ? ? ?

Both ? ? ?

Gestapo protecting the regime by just acting incompetent?

Departmental or Corporate?

Head not knowing what the prune-end is doing?

Why so much milk-and-honey propaganda while doing the opposite?

I guess we'll soon see. Bookmark and stay tuned.

--- Full emails between ebay and me provided further below ---

Joining the large and growing Public disdain for ebay's incompetence and stonewalling their Membership complaints with boiler plate deceit.

(Ever tried to file a complaint or notify ebay ...about items not on their stone-walling selective inquiry menu ? ! )

I'll bet most ebayer's have a few stories of their own to share!

( ...and you can too in the guestbook provided at the bottom of this page just for that purpose! )

Background for why I have taken up exposing ebay incompetence:

I have reported to ebay several scammers using ebay for their scams, and not once received any real-person reply from ebay ....and the scams continued ! In almost every one of the several internet forums I participate in, many other people report quite similar experiences with ebay, and express being fed up with the scams ebay seems to be little concerned about, ....with many folks in those forums saying it doesn't do any good to report such things to ebay unless the scam takes away money from ebay. Seems that way to me too! And I think anyone who has tried to file a complaint on ebay's website knows what a swamp of stonewalling links and menus discourage reporting anything to ebay except for the selective items they want to hear about for their own special interests.

------- oOo -------

I bought a guitar on ebay in January 2004 and the Seller hadn't shipped it by May. Ebay was useless in getting any support help. The FBI Internet Fraud Complaint Center got the guitar shipped in manners ebay should but doesn't.

------- oOo -------

Then on January 13, 2005 I received a guitar case I bought on ebay from Seller 'tuneomatic' who operates an online guitar parts business names 'Vintage Sales'. The guitar case was advertised / described in the auction as being in good condition; But it was broken beyond economical repair, and in deplorable condition, known to the Seller but not disclosed in the Auction and hidden from camera view. Here's a link to the details of that fiasco. The Seller was a real card-carrying rat's prune and legend in his own mind (go see for yourself), who would not provide any definition of his return policy ...as though I would fall deeper into his scams. After this Seller made it clear in his email that he was not going to provide adequate information ...and several emails of suggestions were sent to him which he said he didn't have time to read; I notified ebay and filed a claim with Pay Pal ....which as of 3-5-05 I still haven't heard a word from ebay / Pay Pal about. I left negative feedback for the Seller and informed ebay to watch for the retaliatory feedback the Seller said he would make, and sure 'nuff he did. Ebay has also yet to reply to that complaint too. I then added this bad transaction to my "My Bad Online Transactions" website. So this Seller complained to ebay, ...who has yet to reply to my complaint about this Seller's scam transaction; And ebay informed me that I couldn't link to that website from my *About Me* page BECAUSE USER ID's ARE PRIVATE INFORMATION ! ! ! ! ! Can you believe it .... is anyone actually THAT STUPID ... to make such a claim when right next to where an ebayer provides links from their About Me page, ebay provides a full feature to publish User ID's in Feedback examples ! ! ! ! ! Hmmmmm........ just how low is the minimum IQ required to be an ebay "support" department button-monkey / seat-warmer? So I go visit each and every ebay policy section that the "support" button-monkies provided ..... and NOT ONE SINGLE SECTION they referenced said what the button-monkies said it did .... NOT A SINGLE ONE ! So I dug further into ebay's policy to make sure I covered all of it before I comprehensively replied to their incompetent emails; And ya know what I found? I found that EBAY POLICY EXEMPTS USER ID's FROM PRIVACY AND SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS THEM TO BE PUBLISHED off-ebay ! So I emailed eBay's "support" monkies back, informed them that THERE ISN'T ANY EBAY VIOLATION and provided them comprehensive details of their applicable Policies ...and asked them to please respond and provide SPECIFIC User Agreement and policy clauses to support their claim if they felt different. I got one reply back that SAID NOTHING MORE THAN THEIR ORIGINAL NOTICE ! NO ANSWERS ... NO EXPLANATIONS ... JUST REFERENCES TO POLICY SECTIONS THAT HAD NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE MATTER, AND ACTUALLY ALLOWED WHAT THEY WERE CLAIMING WAS A VIOLATION. ......But wait, it ain't over yet ....not by a long shot; The fun, incredible comedy of ignorance and circus of blind / deaf seat-warming ebay button-monkeys has just begun:

Weeks beyond the time ebay "offered" for me to comply with their demands ...(WHICH I DID weeks earlier),.... the ebay button-monkies STILL DELETED MY EABY "ABOUT ME* PAGE ! ! ! ! ! DuuuUHhhhhhh ....IS ANYONE HOME? CAN'T YOU BLIND / DEAF BUTTON-MONKIES READ YOUR OWN POLICY AND T.O.S.? ANYONE THERE GRADUATE FROM JR. HIGH SCHOOL???? ARE YOU FOLKS WEARING YER UNDERWEAR ON YER HEADS? YOU FOLKS ON DRUGS?

Now, .....I've sent ebay 7 emails pointing out their incredible incompetence and their refusal to answer not only complaints but replies to their own notices and incompetence ....and I've still not gotten anything from them but brain-dead button-monkey replies! ! ! SO ...I began cc'ing ebay's front executive offices the ongoing email message exchanges with their "Support" department retards; So now we should discover whether those button-monkies are as incompetent as they appear to be ...and hopefully will be replaced with someone who has brains, ...OR we'll know that they just act that way on front office corporate-nazi orders.

NOTICE: 5 weeks later and I've not received any contact from the front offices; So anyone can reasonably suppose that they are fully aware of what their support dept is doing, which is now quite obviously just being deceitful, stonewalling, talking heads for the worst of corporate-nazi business philosophies, policies and practices.

Before I post the emails exchanged with the button-monkeys, here's a link to "My Bad Online Experiences" website that ebay is trying their best to blackmail / censor by deleting my ebay *About Me* page (that links to the website) without any valid cause whatsoever. There is also a link there to the 'Vintage Sales' / 'tuneomatic' auction, with ALL the details and emails exchanged with this idiot after receiving the JUNK of that auction.

emails between ebay and me:

(All entries in yellow are my notes entered now and were not in the emails )

This is the first email notice from ebay, ...so you can get the jist of what started this circus of corporate-nazi stonewalling deceit. Experienced ebayer's might enjoy trying to pick out the incompetence / deceit that compounds as each of their stonewalling excuses are proved wrong (ebay T.O.S. & Policies were not violated ... they just wanted to get rid of negative reports of their auctions and business practices) hiding in this button-pushers canned-script, even in this first email. (ebay T.O.S. & Policies were not violated as ebay claimed. ...... ebay just wanted to get rid of public negative publicity):

----- Original Message -----

From: <moreinfo@ebay.com>

To: <dennysguitars @ earthlink.net>

Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 10:43 AM

Subject: AM Notice: eBay Informational Alert- eBay ABOUT ME PAGE CHANGE REQUEST

Dear geetarpicker (dennysguitars@earthlink.net),

Thank you for your interest and participation in our About Me feature. Unfortunately, it was brought to our attention that your eBay About Me page, located at the following URL:

http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=geetarpicker

is in violation of our About Me Guidelines, User Agreement 10.5, Your Use of Other Users' Information. policy.

We noticed that your About Me page contained:

In your ABOUT ME PAGE:

"My Bad Online Transaction Experiences - http://badmailordertransactions.homestead.com/Index.html"

The above url links to:

"http://badmailordertransactions.homestead.com/tuneomatic1.html - eBay transaction with 'tun_o_matic']

"http://badmailordertransactions.homestead.com/drews891.html" - Bad eBay transaction with 'drews89']

[Kindly remove any user ids, email addresses, or identifying information that could identify any eBay members]

While eBay will, if necessary, remove About Me pages that violate its policies, since your About Me page is an expression of your personality and tastes, it is contrary to our policies for us to edit your About Me page. We need to request that these changes be made within 24 hours.

You can make changes to your page by going to the following URL and entering your User ID and password as requested:

http://pages.ebay.com/services/aboutme/aboutme-login.html

If you are unable to make these changes, we will need to remove the entire page for you to start over in creating your About Me page. Please note that our policies that apply to auction pages also apply to our About Me pages, with exception of advertisements. eBay will permit members to advertise their businesses in describing who they are and what they do on their About Me page. However, please remember that it is not acceptable to solicit direct sales in promoting that business.

You can view these guidelines for a better understanding of our listing guidelines and how they affect the way you post your information at the URL below:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-aboutme.html

Information on infringing or illegal items or for information on other eBay listing guidelines, please view:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/item_allowed.html

We would like to thank you in advance for your cooperation in making these changes within 24 hours.

Regards,

Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)

eBay Inc

=================================

NEXT EMAIL:

=================================

OK, everyone can make mistakes once in awhile, even in business Support offices SPECIFICLY supposed to solve problems not create them. So I took allot of time to review the ebay notice, study the ebay policies that apply, and kindly let them know that the violations they claim simply don't exist, but another violation they didn't even mention was found and corrected. Cool .... they'll receive the email and reply back "Thank You, all is well". ................Right?

Nope; Apparantly not when incompetent ebay button monkies or corporate-nazis are involved ! :

----- Original Message -----

From: "Denny T~" <dennysguitars @ earthlink.net>

To: <moreinfo@ebay.com>

Cc: "receipt" <dennysguitars @ earthlink.net>; "Witness" <reliancenet @ hotmail.com>

Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 12:28 AM

Subject: Re: AM Notice: eBay Informational Alert- eBay ABOUT ME PAGE CHANGE REQUEST

Dear eBay Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department),

Thank You for your kind email notice (shown at the bottom of this email message chain) and bringing this matter to my attention. Contrary to your email notice, eBay's "About Me" page policies DO NOT contain the violations you report; Although they do appear in the "Publishing Contact Information Guidelines" MUCH deeper in eBay site navigation, and; Publishing eBay user account names IS NOT in violation of eBay policy as far as I can determine (referenced well in this email to you).

The "My Bad Online Transaction Experiences" link on my eBay "About Me" page is now in full compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement, and is not in violation thereof. And if you are in disagreement then I direct you to provide me SPECIFIC clauses that I am not in compliance with, not mere links to broad policy pages nor link trees; Thank You.

This email is 4 parts:

Part 1 in direct answer to your email notice, and;

Part 2 addressing a broader scope it seems you might intend to convey, and;

Part 3 references for my position, and;

Part 4 a simple request.

I have reviewed your email notice and eBay's policies ("hidden" quite deeply in the jungle of eBay site navigation!) and User Agreement and brought my website and thus my eBay "About Me" page into full compliance with same; to wit:

Please notice that all statements by me below are preceeded by " >>> ". All other entries are exerpts from eBay Policy and User Agreement.

--------------

>>> PART 1.

>>> Subsequent to your email notice, I found that there was some data posted on my website considered private by eBay in the context of eBay transactions and service. Please notice that much effort / courtesy had been previously made to protect the contact information of this Seller. All other information now posted there is specifically exempted by eBay under specific eBay policy clause as NOT being private nor prohibited by eBay and therefore not creating a violation of eBay "About Me" page policy. And although eBay does not have any authority nor propriety over what an eBay Member publishes on their own website, I think it reasonable to infer that linking to information eBay deems private, from an eBay "About Me" page, might be unacceptable within the scope of eBay's authority. Therefore I have removed from my subject website all data that is not in compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement.

>>> My eBay "About Me" page is now in full compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement.

>>> You may review the corrected subject pages of my website at:

http://badmailordertransactions.homestead.com/Index.html

>>> PLEASE NOTE: The statement in your email: "Unfortunately, it was brought to our attention that your eBay About Me page, .... is in violation of our About Me Guidelines, User Agreement 10.5, Your Use of Other Users' Information. policy.":

>>> MY REPLY / POSITION:

>>> The said link on my "About Me" page IS NOT in violation of the "About Me" Guidelines, but is in full compliance. There is nothing in the "About Me" guidelines that was violated. ( see ref. *1 further below); But I did find it in violation of other eBay Policy said herein.

>>> There is no clause 10.5 in the User Agreement, as referenced in your email to me. Ebay's Help search engine can find no such clause nor number for any eBay document nor page.

>>> There is no "About Me" clause in the User Agreement, inferred as a reference in your email to me.

>>> However, my posting information eBay considers private, was in violation of Publishing Contact Information Guidelines, (which WERE NOT linked nor mentioned on ANY eBay "About Me" page information) and has been removed. ( see ref. *2 below).

------------

ref *2:

eBay Reference:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/privacy-contact.html

Publishing Contact Information

eBay policy:

All contact information acquired during the course of an eBay transaction is considered private and may not be published on any online public area including the following:

Web pages

Online forums

Newsgroups

About Me pages

Board Posts

Feedback Comments

eBay considers the following information personal and private:

Name

Address

Phone number

Email address

Note:

User ID's are not considered personal contact information

>>> ALL policies have been complied with and contain no clauses that state anything similar to the email warning from eBay regarding my "About Me" page.

-------

*1:

eBay Reference: (Copied direct from ebay policy webpage)

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-aboutme.html

About Me Guidelines

The eBay About Me page may be used to describe the seller's business, and may contain Web addresses or links to the seller's individual Web site. It may not specifically promote off eBay sales or sales of items prohibited on eBay, nor may it contain links to commercial Web sites where goods from multiple sellers are aggregated by a common search engine.

Note:

The above provides a summary of our links policy.

If you have questions about this policy, view the links policy frequently asked questions.

Related Help topics

Listing Policies for Sellers Overview

Links Policy

>>> ALL policies have been complied with and contain no clauses that state anything similar to the email warning from eBay regarding my "About Me" page.

-------

*1:

eBay Reference: (copied direct from ebay policy webpage)

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html

Links from your About Me Page

You may link to your own Web store or Web site. However, you may not directly offer any non-eBay merchandise on the About Me page itself.

eBay does not permit its users to place the following types of links on your About Me pages:

Links that directly offer any non-eBay listing or merchandise on the About Me page itself.

Links to other online trading sites or pages, including auctions and fixed-price formats. Learn more

Links to sites offering the same merchandise for the same or lower price (including the Buy It Now price).

Links to sites offering merchandise or information not permitted on eBay

On your About Me page, you may link to your own Web site or individual Internet store where you are offering to trade, sell or purchase your goods or services. However, you may not link to any page within online trading sites that offer goods from multiple sellers either in a fixed price or auction format.

About Me pages that do not meet this policy may be removed.

>>> ALL policies have been complied with and contain no clauses that state anything similar to the email warning from eBay regarding my "About Me" page.

=================================================

>>> PART 2.

=================================================

>>> However, although I might be mistaken in reading your email intent, it seems that you might be inferring a broader scope than the matters said above and broader than the letter of governing eBay Policy and User Agreement, which might put us into dispute if so. So in the interest of researching and addrssing a potential problem / dispute in THE BEST OF GOOD FAITH AND RESPECT before it gets started, allow me to provide the following information, research and my position about my eBay "About Me" page, should you be inferring a broader scope in your email notice to me, than what has already been settled as said above:

>>> It is eBay's responsibility to provide an eBay Member with SPECIFIC clauses under which eBay accuses a Member of being in violation of; Links to blanket policy does not convey the clause / accusation eBay makes, ...your email to me a very good example, and therefore causing me a considerable amount of time and energy to research an unknown / unfathomable amount of policy data on eBay. OTHERWISE remedy is satisfied by a Member's reasonable but unsuccesful attempt to find violation(s) of clause.

>>> If an eBay Member is in compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement in eBay functions such as an eBay "About Me" page, which the letter of eBay policy governs, ...then eBay has no jurisdiction nor propriety whatsoever over a Member's own website content, nor should / can eBay make a reasonable inference and/or extension that the two are connected under eBay Policy and User Agreement. Example (but not limited to): Just because eBay restricts what can be entered in eBay Feedback, it cannot without liability limit what a Member might similarly do on his/her own website.

>>> eBay ENCOURAGES and can otherwise not limit a Member from providing another Members identification data to any number of unspecified Government and, by no exclusionary exceptions, Non-Government sources and resources in a dispute between parties in an auction, which eBay furthermore clearly and explicity exempts itself from being a party and/or agent thereof. And again, if an eBay Member is in compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement, then eBay states quite clearly that it has no propriety nor authority whatsoever over what a Member does with information another Member provided him/her; ...particularly relevant in a dispute. Example: eBay encourages it's Members to file complaints with the FBI / IFCC knowing very well that a Member MUST provide the very information eBay considers private withing the authority of eBay that cannot be extended any further than that authority.

>>> Some information posted on my website and linked from my eBay "About Me" page, is a copy of my eBay contract which is explicitly stated as being a contract in eBay's User Agreement and Policies, which is my own personal property afforded me by eBay, that eBay clearly states they are passive and have no agencyship, propriety nor authority over, and otherwise no authority over as long as using it is not in violation of specific eBay policy / user agreement in the context of eBay services and authority. EBay has no authority whatsoever over what a person does with any information outside eBay's authority. And under Government rules governing Pay Pal and eBay, ...eBay cannot, without liability, suspend service of a Member who is in compliance within the authority of eBay policy and User Agreement.

>>> Any reference I have made about the other party in the subject eBay transaction dispute was information provided to me by that party and not by eBay who is not a party and is only a passive service provider, unless eBay desires to make themselves a broader party to the transaction contract and dispute contrary to eBay Policy and User Agreement.

>>> The "My Bad Online Transaction Experiences" link on my eBay "About Me" page is now in full compliance with eBay Policy and User Agreement, and is not in violation thereof, and;

>>> eBay cannot extend nor infer their Policy and User Agreement to the content of my own website, nor that my website content constitutes an extension of my posting on eBay or otherwise constitutes a violation of eBay Policy or User Agreement unless such a violation is stated in eBay policy or User Agreement.

-------

>>> ALSO; Regarding your email's statement: "Please note that our policies that apply to auction pages also apply to our About Me pages.......": I kindly dispute that claim. The specific writings in eBay Policy and User Agreement is governing, and eBay policy about auction pages and About Me pages have entirely different and conflicting policies and clauses; which cannot be applied to each others' sections unless specifically said so in published policy or User Agreement, which I don't find in the broad abstract of your statement. Otherwise, ...and the matters at hand a prime example, ...a Member has no way of knowing which clauses of one apply to the other and which ones don't.

>>> Also, as mere courtesy on my part, having nothing to do with the matters at hand, ...please be advised that eBay has no authority nor propriety to prohibit anyone from using or posting any information provided to an eBay Member by another eBay Member who provided such information outside of eBay ...such as in private email, ...nor for any information unless eBay can show that they do indeed have exclusive propriety over such information and the information was gotten from such propriety. EBay claiming such broad propriety negates the clause and scope of such a claim. You might desire to bring this to your Corporate Counsel's attention for his/her review; Refering to eBay's attempt to establish such authority:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-contact.html

==============================================================

>>> PART 3:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>> REFERENCES FOR THE ABOVESAID POSITION:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

eBay Reference: (Copied direct from ebay policy webpage)

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html?ssPageName=f:f:US

eBay User Agreement:

EBay user agreement relative to "About Me" pages says:

3.5 Information Control. We do not control the information provided by other users that is made available through our system. You may find other user's information to be offensive, harmful, inaccurate, or deceptive. Please use caution, common sense, and practice safe trading when using the Site. ..... By using this Site, you agree to accept such risks and eBay is not responsible for the acts or omissions of users on the Site.

6.1 Definition. "Your Information" is defined as any information you provide to us or other users in the registration, bidding or listing process, in any public message area (including the Café or the feedback area) or through any email feature. You are solely responsible for Your Information, and we act as a passive conduit for your online distribution and publication of Your Information.