Worthless Global Shipping Customer Service

[airmailman75]

Let me tell ya'all a story; I recently sold two items; one to a person in Canada and one to a person in the US. Well, for some reason, the tags got switched. I found this out 2 days before the (wrong) parcel arrived at the shipping center in Erlanger, KY. I contacted eBay customer service and they assured me that they would put in an urgent request to stop the parcel, but they could not contact the shipping center directly nor was there any customer service phone number for them - that should have been a giant red flag! I searched high and low for contact information for Erlanger. It wasn't until I contacted another company located in the same building that I learned that the company in charge was Pitney Bowes. Tried every single customer service contact number for Pitney Bowes and most were disconnected. I called PB corporate and yelled long and hard enough that they finally gave me the Global Shipping Program customer service number.....in India. I contacted them and they were oh so sorry but there was nothing they could do, even though the parcel was still sitting in Kentucky. They further went on to tell me that eBay customer service can call the PB customer service number 24 hours per day, but they never do. They checked my account and there were no calls or emails from eBay customer service, ever. My only hope at this point is that the package makes it to the (wrong) customer and I can get it returned.

But there are far larger questions involved here. First, of what use is eBay customer service in the Global Shipping Program since they don't seem to really know how it works? Why did they lie about not being able to contact Global Shipping Customer Service? Why did they lie about contacting them? Why is the phone number for the Global Shipping Program customer service such a mystery (as an FYI, it is (866) 235-9627)? Why can't Global Shipping customer service do much of anything other than to tell you they can't do anything? And finally, why can't someone have customer service that a) is located less than 8,000 miles away and b) that is empowered to actually do, you know, customer service?

I've been active on eBay since it was just a few young kids sitting at card tables building the system. Each year, it gets more complex and more restrictive. Management is behind many, many walls of "customer service" and you can never reach anyone that has any authority or can even answer a question correctly. Yet the prices for less and less service keep going up. Anyone but me see a problem here?

[bebre_49]

You went about this the wrong way.

You should have gone to what ever carrier you used and done a package intercept.

It's not eBay or Pitney Bowes job to sort your mess out.

[airmailman75]

Yeah, did that. Pitney Bowes wouldn't give it to them (UPS).

[bebre_49]

You needed to do it BEFORE it was delivered.

[airmailman75]

I found out about the problem the same day of delivery, in fact within about an hour of delivery. Too late. Once it enters the Pitney Bowes black hole, it's not coming out again until it's off the plane headed to it's final destination.

But, setting aside the logistics of it all, any thoughts about customer service that is powerless and doesn't tell the truth? That's what this is really all about.

[bebre_49]

Customer service every where is known to tell you what you want to hear to get rid of you.

[airmailman75]

A highly cynical, albeit true, response.

[ed8108]

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@bebre_49 wrote:

Customer service every where is known to tell you what you want to hear to get rid of you.

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If you suspect the above to be true, is it even remotely possible that an ebay rep may pretend to not comprehend what you are saying in english to get rid of your call?

[bebre_49]

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@ed8108 wrote:

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@bebre_49 wrote:

Customer service every where is known to tell you what you want to hear to get rid of you.

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If you suspect the above to be true, is it even remotely possible that an ebay rep may pretend to not comprehend what you are saying in english to get rid of your call?

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I'm pretty sure they do lol I have a friend who speaks Filipino and they pretend they can't understand her. 

[airmailman75]

If you really want to have some fun, ask customer service a question that is "out of the box". They don't even put up a pretense of not understanding you, they just hang up. Had that happen a time or two, even here on our beloved eBay.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@airmailman75 wrote:

I found out about the problem the same day of delivery, in fact within about an hour of delivery. Too late. Once it enters the Pitney Bowes black hole, it's not coming out again until it's off the plane headed to it's final destination.

But, setting aside the logistics of it all, any thoughts about customer service that is powerless and doesn't tell the truth? That's what this is really all about.

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According to youre opening post you discovered it two days before it was delivered 

"Well, for some reason, the tags got switched. I found this out 2 days before the (wrong) parcel arrived at the shipping center in Erlanger, KY."

[myangelandmyprincess]

And here is the thing...you're complaining about how the operation is run so poorly that they can't fix this but YOUR operation made the mistake.  Pointing out the problems in their system when it's an error in your system that caused this in the first place seems hypocritical.   Along with that eBay had no obligation to put in the extra work effort to fix your mistake nor should they be expected to.  The first priority is move packages forward to where they need to go.   

[airsheep]

I wouldn't chew too hard on the OP. As soon as they discovered the error on their end, they tried to contact ebay, then the shipping company to correct it. This is the point at which hilarity ensued.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@airsheep wrote:
I wouldn't chew too hard on the OP. As soon as they discovered the error on their end, they tried to contact ebay, then the shipping company to correct it. This is the point at which hilarity ensued.

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but you can't expect ebay or GSP to be able fix that.  They aren't set up to be able to fix it.  Even if they used the extra effort to be sure they caught the package what are the supposed to do then?   refuse it? that seems like a bad idea.  Pay to ship it back to the OP?   they shouldn't be out of pocket for this.  Have the OP send them money to send it back?  they don't have any way set up to allow that that I know of.   They don't have any system set up to fix this error for sellers.  Thats apparent by how hard it was to even contact them in general about it.   Nor would I expect them to spend money and/or time to set up any system to fix it. 

I'll give you that customer service on ebay is horrible.  They should have just told the OP there wasn't anything they could do.  The OPs title blames GSP though and I just don't think GSP can be held at fault. 

[airmailman75]

Long time past the original post, but for entertainment value I wanted to share the rest of the story.

The package that was supposed to go to Canada reached it's (wrong) destination and was kindly forwarded on by a very helpful buyer and the other buyer in Canada got their items and was very happy. Parcel that was destined to the US buyer but went to Canada disappeared. Weeks passed and nobody seemed to know what happened. I refunded the buyer ($750!). More than a year passes and I get a call from UPS in Toronto. They found a package in their warehouse in Toronto that looks like it once belonged to me. They forward it back to me and I finally have the missing item. Told the original buyer that it was found and he still wanted it. Closed the loop and ended up with 2 happy buyers.

UPS is still trying to figure out what happened but it appears that the GSP operation shipped it to Canada with the wrong customs documentation and it got held up in Customs. After sitting there for several months waiting for the original shipper to claim it (this would have been the GSP office in Kentucky with the stealth phone number), it went into the bowels of Canada Customs until somebody got sick of moving it around and they sent it back to the local UPS since they were the destination carrier. It kicked around multiple offices of UPS in Canada before finally ending up on the desk of someone who either gave a **bleep** or was just curious. They went back through their system based on the original shipping tags which were covered by the GSP tags and located the original shipping account number which brought them back to me. 

Moral(s) of the story? GSP still has some serious communications problems. UPS is better than everybody thinks they are. And finally, never give up hope and thankfully the vast majority of the eBay community are decent, honest and understanding people. Wish we as sellers still had the ability to give buyer feedback as there are buyers out there that deserve attaboys.