Two problems: Can't leave feedback, and can't reach live customer service agent

[conculcate]

I tried to leave feedback for a purchase I just made. The feedback form says essentially "now you can leave a star review for the item you purchased". I'm not going to review an item I just received; to know if it's any good I need to use it for a while. But the Leave Feedback button is grayed out if you don't star the item. So, in fact, you now MUST review the item to leave buyer feedback. Which is a horrible decision.

So I went to the help page where the Automated Assistant (chatbot) is the only "help" available. Chatbot says, over and over, "Sorry, live support's currently unavailable." But it won't answer when it WILL be available. And from certain prompts it will answer "You can also get more info searching online help [link], or you can contact an agent." But the "Contact an agent" button below that is grayed out.

This is incredibly infuriating. Great example of why I despise so-called AI, and also a great example of ensh1ttification.

Eventually I found this forum which appears to be my only real recourse, aside from quitting eBay entirely (and I've been using it since 1999, so that's a lot of loyalty being squandered).

[buyselljack2016]

aside from quitting eBay entirely 

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because you cannot leave feedback without an item review ?

[eburtonlab]

I'm not going to review an item I just received; to know if it's any good I need to use it for a while.

You have sixty days to decide if you want to leave feedback or not. If you are not comfortable rating the product by then, you do not have to leave any feedback at all.

I am not sure what eBay intends to do with those product "ratings", but so far I have not had the chance to leave any product ratings for items I have purchased, nor have I seen any indication of such ratings in any seller feedback pages I have viewed recently. Perhaps those ratings only affect "new" items, and the ratings are not connected to the seller at all, but the product itself, similar to product reviews versus seller feedback.

Obviously any "product rating" made as part of feedback would have to be done within about sixty days of receiving the item, so could only be a provisional or preliminary product rating, at best.

Rating (or not rating) a product as part of a feedback comment will not have any real effect on your ability to, say, file a "not as described" case later on if a problem does develop -- at least as far as I can tell.

Use the "Comment" link in the lower right corner of the feedback page to register your opinion of the feedback process.

Tell us what you think of the new Feedback For All Transactions page (ebay.com)

[soh.maryl]

Any buyer has 60 days after receipt to leave feedback for any item that he/she has purchased.

And FB is voluntary/optional not required/mandatory.

If what you want to "contact an agent" about is the FB situation, why bother?

Several responders here have very clearly spelled it out for you.