I am seriously considering to no longer buy anything on eBay, Three times in a row now, I had nothing but problems when trying to PAY for my purchases.
The first case goes back to a few days ago, when the seller opened an Unpaid Item case against me, despite being aware that I was still bidding on another item. Because I was held up with work, I saw the open case too late and by then, I received a strike on my buyer record.
When the second item was won, I have immediately contacted the seller and asked for a combined invoice for both items. Whatever the seller did or did not do, I did get a combined invoice - but NO button to pay for the order! Sure enough, no response from seller again - instead, he opened a case of unpaid item - for the second order I clearly won. I caught this one immediately and clicked on PAY NOW, from the open case, hoping to get at least this second item. A red message popped up, stating, unable to complete this right now. The unpaid item case was still open, as the deadline to pay was AUG 31st which was yesterday. So, I went to chat with CS (twice) about this - last Friday and then Saturday, again. After having explained about 8 times to 4 different people why I need help, they all (but one) missed the fact I discovered: that the seller has RELISTED the second item in the meantime, while the unpaid case was still open! How could the seller relist an item that is not a mass produced but an OOAK item - only one available - while I still had 2 days to, and wanted to pay for it? This remains a mystery. After having wasted 2.5 hours of my precious time, I was told by the 5th person that the unpaid item strike on the first item was removed from my record, but there is nothing they can do about the second, still open case, other than either contact the seller and ask for a PayPal invoice (which I did 5 times, to no avail, as this seller does not respond to emails, looks like) OR, ebay suggested I buy "something similar." Except, there is nothing "similar," this is a one of a kind item. But they did not explain why I am unable to pay from an open case? Instead, they said I can contact them again once this case is closed and I get a second strike, and they will then appeal it and remove it for me. Nice. The fact that I LOST this item for good, as there are already more bids on it than for what I won it for, does not seem to matter. They did mention though, that the seller's employee may have made a mistake and relisted it, but told me, only the seller could close the new listing.
Fast forward to today. I purchased 7 items from a Canadian seller, and another 6 from another Canadian seller. In neither of the two cases am I able to ask for a "Request total" invoice. When I click on Request total, I end up seeing a red error message (sounds familiar?) "We're sorry, but we can't complete your request right now. If you see this message more than once, contact us, and we'll try our best to help."
The items do not combine into one single invoice. The first Canadian seller offers FREE shipping if more than 5 items purchased, yet, when I click on the top PayNow button (each item appears to still have its own PayNow button, like I said, nothing combined), and then click on PayPal, I see that eBay is trying to bill me 30.00 Canadian $$ for the order. That is the same on the other Canadian seller's items, too. So, instead of getting FREE shipping - I now am being asked to pay 60.00 Canadian $$ for shipping! There is no way to ask for a total invoice.
One of the Canadian sellers is very responsive and already knows of this problem, while the other has not yet responded.
I most definitely do NOT have the extra hours to communicate with eBay Chat - because first, you are connected to an "automated" assistant and only if you insists to stay on the chat and wait some time, are you getting, finally, a live person, at which point, you have to explain everything all over again, despite very thoroughly having described what transpired, to begin with.
Arrgh. I am not sure what the programmers are doing at this company, but there are just too many bugs to be fixed for me to consider buying here again. By the way, I kept all chat transcripts which we are not allowed to post here, and will keep a copy of this post, also, just in case invisible hands would play with it.
This has been an exasperating weekend and not a good start of the new week, for me.
