@frodobagginskennedy wrote:
"Policies are an issue on both sides.
its so ridiculous to even get someone on the phone on Amazon support that could take action on your case & you are stuck sending in silly appeals that try to get past their automated system."
I have to disagree with this statement. I have had nothing but excellent service from Amazon with issues.
I'll clarify, because it depends on your type of issue.
- As a customer, they will consistently give you great service.
- As a seller with basic issues, they will consistently give great service, although policies are not always in your favor.
- As a seller with any sort of complex issue, or issue that requires more authority than CSR's (many cases require their Seller Performance team's approval) - there is where the problem appears.
The 3rd case here is the problem.
For example, we had some open & shut cases. One of them, a manufacturer tried to claim copyright against our listing. Our item was a COMPLETELY different brand! Easily not a copyright claim, because the person who made the claim was not the copyright holder of the item we were selling.
It took us weeks of being on the phone to get this handled, and during this time our account was suspended. We would speak to a CSR, they tell you to send your appeal to Sellers Performance, and their Seller Performance team's emails have to go through an AUTOMATED SYSTEM before it reaches anyone who will actually read your email! The automated system kept rejecting our mail.
Then we try again. We would speak to a supervisor, they would give us a checklist of the 5 things that need to be in our appeal to get past the automated system. We would send them a copy of our appeal - supervisor confirming that we hit all the points. Send the email in - 2 minutes later, auto rejection email.
I finally got to a supervisor who sent our case directly to the leadership team and got it handled. But it took far too long, and was completely unfair. You can be 100% certain the emails never reached a person, because once a person looked at the case, it was obviously not copyright infringement since they didn't even have the same brand.
We had other issues similar to this. To make the problems worse, Amazon CSR's in any case where they have to refer you to Seller Performance, will tell you anything to make you happy, because they email a survey about how they did afterward. Many CSR's tell you blatant lies just for that survey.
Also combine this with China sellers who have marketing teams that report your items for infringement, knowing that it's a nightmare to prove, and if you report their infringement, since they are China sellers Amazon has trouble proving authenticity one way or another. They have an easier time dealing with the same cases.
To be fair, if you have severe issues on eBay, it's just as bad for different reasons. In severe cases, eBay will directly tell you they don't even have a team that can help you, period. Amazon has a team that can help, but you have to get past their automated systems to even speak to them.
Both have their own issues, and tbh, both are not ideal. Hard to say which is worse to deal with as a seller.
