The Instagram help is such a pale shadow of what we used to get
Summary: gurlcat expressed frustration with eBay's shift from providing customer service through platforms like Facebook and Twitter to Instagram, citing delays and misunderstandings in responses from representatives like 'Jessica' and 'Conor.' adamcartwright and others joined the discussion to share similar concerns about the quality and timing of responses. Some participants noted that social media support had been more effective in the past, while others recommended using eBay's website chat feature. There was debate over the motivations behind using social media for customer support, with gurlcat ultimately reporting a successful resolution to their issue after a prolonged process.
I don't remember how long ago eBay ended the 1-on-1 message help on Facebook and Twitter, several months? A year? Anyway, at that time I bit the bullet and signed up for an Instagram account, as it was the only remaining option. I had a feeling it wouldn't be as good, not because of the platform but just because all 3 were being funneled into 1, which seemed sure to cause a log jam.
Then I quickly discovered they don't even work on the weekends, like I knew they did on Facebook. With the Instagram one, if you start a message on Friday night, you won't hear anything back until sometime Monday.
Then I had fairly slow and relatively unsatisfying help with the 3 problems I've posted since the transition.
But my current one takes the cake. Tuesday night I started a message there. It was around 9:30 PM Central, so I wasn't too surprised when I got no response before I went to bed. I didn't know what hours they worked other than 'no weekends' but figured there was probably some nighttime cutoff. But yesterday when I woke up, I saw that 'Jessica' (at 3:15 AM) had replied with the initial message of "I understand you're having a problem with _____ . Please authorize this investigation by logging in with this link." So I did that, and replied that I did.
NO response again the rest of yesterday. I kept checking and checking. Went to bed a little before 3 AM. Now today I see a 'Conor' replied at 3:21 AM. And he was basically just asking me to re-verify my problem, except his understanding was not quite right, or not fully right anyway. -Like he didn't even read the first post I made. So I replied with the more accurate description of what's happening.
But WHO KNOWS how many more times various names are going to reply in the middle of the night, before the true nature of my problem is even investigated?? It feels like I'm in a bad comedy sketch!
@adamcartwright @tarotfindsandmore @jonathanbrightlight
gurlcat
OP1 week agoUPDATE: In this case, reaching out to Instagram WORKED. My auto-pay preference is working again!
I still feel it took longer than it would have with the Facebook reps, but I also have little faith that the phone reps would have gotten it fixed. -Purely speculation; I could be wrong.
adamcartwright
·1 week agoAre you referring to when you have your settings to require a payment source before bidding, then someone wins an auction and doesn't pay?
gurlcat
OP1 week agoYes. But what made me contact on Instagram was mine stopped working. First I had 4 auctions in one night that just changed from "Autopay at 9:30" (or whenever) to "Waiting for payment" -which if it just happens once it means that person used a card with insufficient funds -but all 4 auctions in one night is too big a coincidence. THEN the next few auctions didn't even SAY "Autopay at X:XX" -they said 'Waiting for payment' as if I didn't even have the preference set to require a card anymore!! But I did, so obviously something was just wrong on eBay's end.
adamcartwright
·2 weeks agoSo comments can be pinned now?
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoYes have been for at least a few weeks I think. -If you're the OP, you can click on the 'More' under any comment and 'Pin to top' is in that menu.
adamcartwright
·2 weeks agoThat's a very nice feature.
Helps to make up for the lousy search in this new system, to a tiny degree.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoYeah it's the next best thing to 'Best Answer' like we had in the old forums.
gurlcat
OP1 week ago@adamcartwright Check it out, you can pin MORE THAN ONE comment to the top!^
yo0339
·2 weeks agoIt's OK, Intergran sense to quick now.
The new CS might be going the hanged of it.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoLOL It's always "Hailey" who closes the ticket. I think there are probably all different people being called "Hailey."
spreadlovelikefire
·2 weeks agoI figured out the reps that respond in the middle of the night are not the main CSA's that respond M-F normal business hours. They give canned responses and are either AI or not versed in customer service. The last time I actually straight up asked if they were the regular customer service reps and I was told they were not. So I asked to be put back in line because they weren't giving me the information I was needing.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoThank you that is very interesting, and appears right from this current experience I'm having with them.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoYou know what, this is so relevant to the topic, I'm going to pin it to the top. Thanks again.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoUgh. So SUPPOSEDLY there is an open tech ticket for the problem I'm having. But yesterday when I added a screenshot as additional evidence, Hailey came back (first time in the message thread that the same worker replied twice in a row, and in fairly short time) -and she asked me for the item number of that example.
So I gave it.
Now today I see I have a new message, YIPPIE! But here it is. I don't get it -I'll sign in again, but I should already be, if I really have an official open ticket!
avocat123
·2 weeks agoGeez Louise...its been awhile but Ive had better luck making a phonecall.
dhbookds
·2 weeks agoLots of legit complaints about CS on the boards........just wonder how many questions are handled well......and never posted about and how many aren't handled well.....and we never hear about those either.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoThat is an excellent point. Discussion forums do tend to attract extreme negativity bias. And not just about CS -if space aliens read only the Selling forum here, they'd think eBay buyers are the pettiest, scammiest creatures on Earth. Or if they read the Buying forum, they'd think eBay sellers are the worst. -Almost nobody posts about positive experiences.
However I will say I have posted positive CS outcomes here, many times, and I've seen others do so as well. But it's usually regulars who do that, whereas new or infrequent posters are more likely to come here just because they're angry.
stainlessenginecovers
·2 weeks agoMoral of the story is:
There is NO decent CSR help AT ALL anymore!
When FB went bye bye (and is obvious by the 3am replies) the 'new' and ONLY last help in IG is from the same 3rd World in the middle of the Earth reps that
a.) have NO power to do anything
b.) seldom even understand the systems and/or problems that come up
c.) answer with gibberjabber that is 100% worthless.
Basically, we are ALL on our own. When an 'error' occurs- too bad, so sad.
Rinse and Repeat.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoFor the record I don't yet know if I'm going to get my problem fixed via the Instagram folks. -They say I have an open tech ticket. I WILL update here if/when it does or doesn't get fixed, I promise.
paxilill
·2 weeks agoI hate to say it, but eBay's 1-800 customer service line 8 years ago was total trash. This is nothing new.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoThis post has nothing to do with the phone customer service. The social media help IS relatively new, compared to that.
roccotacodad54
·2 weeks ago · EditedWhen it is 9:00 AM in Mobile, Alabama, it is 3:00 AM in the UTC-11 time zone, which includes American Samoa.
Maybe that's it?
paxilill
·2 weeks agoMy comment has everything to do with eBay's long-term failures in customer service. If they couldn't master customer service via phone they sure aren't going to master in on a trust me bro platform like Instaspam, Flakebook etc. The real sad part is you've now been bamboozled to sign up for a Meta product
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoWhat you obviously don't know is that they WERE providing supreme customer service via those 3 social media platforms for years, before they decided to limit it to just one. Any veteran/regular member here could tell you that.
Problems that the phone reps couldn't even pretend to help with would be fixed like magic by these workers, who were American, English-fluent, and granted more executive power to make decisions than the phone reps. We could authorize them to get right into our accounts and see what we see, rather than try to get them to understand through words. They could override automated outcomes, remove feedback, issue refunds, remove performance defects, the whole 9.
So you can make up childish nicknames all you want, but some of us know what a great resource the social media help used to be.
paxilill
·2 weeks agoDo you think they launched on these social media sites because they're trying to provide the best customer service? They did it to gather more data on you, that was the only goal.
jonathanbrightlight
·2 weeks agoThe social media chat support doesn't enable them to gather any more data about you than they already have as an eBay user...
grann-4629
·2 weeks agoI can only imagine what they know about us ... just from reading what we post here ... little bits on info like where we live, what we do, our ages etc. And it's probably not just eBay learning about us.
But, in the end, who really cares 😎
paxilill
·2 weeks agoThey're just using a 2nd party that we don't know what terms of service they have with them. There is likely a perverse incentive vs. eBay building this out on their own platform to do so
tarotfindsandmore
·2 weeks agoCustomer service is essentially useless, unless you have days of your life available to throw away until you might get someone who is actually paying attention and is capable of answering your question.
I just went through another debacle with eIS in which I got a half dozen different answers to a pretty straightforward question ("can I combine these BIN items since they're essentially the same and the system already combined two of them?"), with three different answers coming from the same individual. In the end, all six answers were totally wrong and my package made it through the eIS hub just fine. If I'd listened to any of them, I would have both made a complete mess of the buyer's orders and gotten dinged for a late acceptance scan.
I'm honestly starting to think they're recruiting CS reps from halfway houses or zoos (though most apes are better able to communicate and comprehend).
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoI dread the day I get 2+ orders from one EIS buyer, after all the posts I've seen here about that issue.
grann-4629
·2 weeks ago@tarotfindsandmore apes are also better at flinging xxxx that is pretty much what we get now 😎
jonathanbrightlight
·2 weeks agoI've actually had great success with the chat feature right on the eBay website, through the Help & Contact link. I haven't used any of the social media ones for a while, even before they shut them down.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks ago · EditedAre you talking about the live chat, with a human rep? @jonathanbrightlight
jonathanbrightlight
·2 weeks agoYep. I don't really end up interacting with the AI, which may be because our seller account has concierge service (I didn't think it affected that, but it might).
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoI thought they did away with concierge service. -Admittedly I'm really ignorant about that whole topic. I'm tempted to ask you a bunch of questions but I'll hold back, lol.
jonathanbrightlight
·2 weeks agoI think they removed it from a bunch of accounts that previously had it, but some still do. When I go to Help & Contact, I see this: "As an eBay Concierge member, you have instant access to premium service."
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoIs there still a way to GET it? Like a monthly fee or something? I do remember when a bunch of people who had it (supposedly for 'life') just for attending an Open years ago, but then they lost it anyway -there was a big uproar here about it, and I was mad for them too!
jonathanbrightlight
·2 weeks agoDoesn't look like it, it's basically at eBay's discretion:
Currently, the program is open only to select customers.
Buyers and sellers with the highest value and volume of eBay transactions are invited to join the program.
https://www.ebay.com/help/account/changing-account-settings/ebay-concierge?id=4358
avocat123
·2 weeks agoI tried that recentky and gave up.
grann-4629
·2 weeks ago@gurlcat
I never tried it so I cannot really comment. However, if basic help for new eBay member problems can't be solved using eBay's automated system, it is going to become a larger problem. I consider you an 'expert' in all things eBay and if you need an answer where are you going to get it?
btw, why in the heck were you up at 03:00? 😎
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoActually if I'm in bed by 3 that's kind of early. It's not rare for me to go to bed well past sunrise. I don't know why.
But thank you for that "expert" compliment -I don't know about that, but I definitely know enough how-to eBay stuff to know when a problem is beyond anything I can do myself, nor what anybody here in the Community could solve (which I did start a post about this problem several days ago, got no replies). So if I turn to eBay, it's truly the last resort.
But yeah, just think of all the sellers (maybe even buyers?) who have a question they could have found in the Help pages or gotten answered here in the forums, but they heard they could ask on Instagram. And that number is only bound to GROW over time. So what I'm encountering with this ticket is basically inevitable.
avocat123
·2 weeks agoThis is the Way
adamcartwright
·2 weeks agoInstagram was always slow, so that's why I preferred X.
But to not get a response in over 24 hours?
Can someone from eBay check on this for us, please? @devon@ebay
gurlcat
OP2 weeks ago"no response in over 24 hours" isn't quite right. But 'MANY' hours, and in bonkers times in the middle of the night. Also how this Connor feller seemed to only partially get what my problem is, when I described it very carefully in my original message.
So what I'm picturing is either they're now having non-English-fluent workers field these like the phone reps, or they're so overburdened with tickets there's pressure to skim-read messages.
grann-4629
·2 weeks agoOr you woke the guy up and he was still in dreamland ...
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoLOL I didn't SEND either of my messages in the 3 o'clock hour. That's just when Jessica and Conor got to them, in what must be a giant pile of tickets.
adamcartwright
·2 weeks agoOh I must have misunderstood. I thought you responded to their first message at 3:15 AM, then didn't hear back from them until 3:21 AM the next morning.
grann-4629
·2 weeks agoSo did I ... your OP said you Went to bed a little before 3 AM.
gurlcat
OP2 weeks agoI don't know why that's causing so much confusion, LOL. The only reason I even mentioned when I went to bed is because both times the reps sent me messages AFTER I went to bed, which is why I didn't see either until the next day.
I sent both of MY messages to them at normal, non-vampire times,.
We clear now?
avocat123
·2 weeks agoI read " non English fluent field workers"!