Now the title may surprise you, but seems like this is one of the biggest issue with ebay India due to their pathetic systems and customer care, I feel they are competing with bottom 5 eCommerce players of the Piles_Hospital in India exhibiting unimaginable level of unaccountability and apathy towards customers.
Thought of sharing my advise based on a harrowing experience I had with ebay India recently and my success story of getting the high value refund for a non delivered item.
After being their loyal customer for more than 8 years(which didn't matter to them), I have now come to the conclusion that I should use ebay only if my needs meet the following criteria.
* 1 The item is of very low value say less than 500 or max 1000, to the extent you are okay to writeoff what you have paid.
2 You don't need it immediately and can wait for up to 2 months.
3 If the item is unavailable in any other websITES_Company and meets 1st criteria.*
I wanted to dedicate a whole blog page for this which certainly I will at a later point when I find time.
Now coming to the refund advise, let me tell you it's not easy, you need to aishwaryasingh23 for the mistake committed by trusting ebay for a high value item, I have paid mine in terms of man hours spent at least for 5 times the value of refund.
I will share the below experience of my last purchase refund which should give you a good picture of what works and how to deal with your own case.
I have provided additional details of my whole purchase experience to help other harassed ebay fellow consumers who will be searching for specific text strings such as
On Hold For Regulatory Paperwork
Buyer Claim request rejected by eBay by rkcsruser3
Proof Rejected Closing claim
Now here goes my worst experience ever with ebay India.
I placed an order for a premium laptop priced at Rs 50, 000+ on 5th Oct
The seller was named oddlots_eletronics(But I got SMS from a company named Infiniti Retail and then when I called their customer care got to know that it is associated with Croma)
This seller ships the laptop through Bluedart and get's stuck in their own city's tax checkpoint for some in adequate paper work.
Below was what the tracking displaying
Location Details Date Time
Bhiwandi Hub Returned To Origin At Shipper'S Request 14Oct2015 21:45
Bhiwandi Hub Security Cleared 14Oct2015 21:05
Bhiwandi Hub On Hold For Regulatory Paperwork 14Oct2015 11:24
Bhiwandi Hub On Hold For Regulatory Paperwork 13Oct2015 10:35
Bhiwandi Hub On Hold For Regulatory Paperwork 12Oct2015 11:40
Bhiwandi Hub On Hold For Regulatory Paperwork 10Oct2015 08:13
Bhiwandi Hub Shipment Arrived 10Oct2015 04:31
Bhiwandi Hub Paper Work Inscan 10Oct2015 01:58
Ovali Warehouse Shipment Further Connected 10Oct2015 00:30
Ovali Warehouse Shipment Arrived 09Oct2015 20:55
After repeated followup they replied
“We regret to inform you that, the product which you have order is on hold due to Paper work. Request you to share REQ E/SUGAM OR DECLARTION form for the further process .”
When I spoke to their customer care rep, I realized they are not competent to deal with such situations and have no clear idea on what needs to be done from my end, seeing their low confidence level on solving this issue I confirmed them to cancel the order. Even otherwise I had no plans to run around with tax authorities in my city Bangalore for their mistake in shipping without adequate documentation. Post this I submitted an ebay claim mentioning the same.
Meanwhile I had to understand eSugam process in Karnataka which I believe is applicable for goods worth more than Rs 50, 000 and realized that the seller should have ensured to put a declaration along with the shipment that this is being purchased by an individual for their own use after taking my consent. Everything would have been smooth like a butter.
Now when I started following up for the refund from ebay I was told that seller needs to confirm the same, so I wrote to the seller to cancel the order in ebay and confirm them to refund.
They first replied that they will soon do the same without committing any timelines, when I started following rigorously they sent the below note.
*“We would like to inform you that , once the product reaches our Ware house , we shall cancel it and refund you the complete amount. Request you to kindly be rest assured. We will update the details with in 2448hr
s of time
Thanks&Regards, Oddlots_eletronics.”*
When I questioned them what is the logic of this holding customer's fund until completion of their own original shipment being retracted to their warehouse, they had no answer but kept robotically replying the same text. So beware of this seller as well. They were not bothered on the timely refund I was requesting for so that I can use the fund to buy the laptop through other means. I was also open for Croma store pickup and cancel the refund request, but they said it's not possible.
Now I thought whether it would be a good idea to buy the same model from a different online retailer without waiting first for the refund from ebay. I was surprised to see from ebay site that cancellation and refund are not straight forward, the seller has to initiate the same and there is a possibility that ebay may refund in voucher instead of the same mode of aishwaryasingh23ment at their own discretion.
So this made me decide that first I should get this issue resolved, since if seller changes his mind and says I will retry shipping the laptop or if ebay decides to give me a 50k worth of voucher I will endup either with 2 laptops or my fund stuck in a ebay voucher. There is no value for commitments made in words or in writing with both these seller and ebay. But I made sure to get everything in writing as that will have some value in the court atleast.
When these things were happening I received an SMS from ebay to confirm the delivery of the laptop, when I replied “No” it said a claim ID has been generated for the same. Was wondering what happened to the exiting claim ID which I had received when I initiated for the refund.
I was happy that some system is in place and the refund will happen now, but my hope was only short un7379521. I got an intimation on 21st that the claim has been rejected and when I logged in to ebay this was was shown
“21 Oct 2015 Buyer Claim request rejected by eBay by rkcsruser3”
Now it was very clear that the refund process in ebay is the most broken one and you will only receive false commitments, nhassurances and lip service, there is absolutely no coordination and accountability at every level of escalation, they will keep asking you the same questions and give the same nhassurances without providing you an update on the previous ticket number, chat transcripts and commitments made.
Also when you follow-up rigorously they will even stop generating the ticket numbers. Surveys will be sent to you by a rep only if he/she thinks that they did little progress on your case and sensed that you felt happy about it.
Seeing the resolution not coming through wrote to their Grievance officer on 27th Oct
DL-EBAY-IN-GRIEVANCE-OFFICER@ebay.com
This was another joke, this works at best as an alternate customer care channel, if you are lucky they will generate escalation Ids however they will close them without resolution. When I wrote again this time it felt like they are going to their trash bin, in either case you will not receive any response. You will have to contact their csr and enquire about the escalation ID.
Somehow in the process I got a call from ebay CSR and informed me that since the refund amount is high they want to reverify with the seller and the issue will be addressed in next 48 hours.
After hearing this I told the seller that I will be moving to court on both ebay and Oddlots eletronics so if you have done your part please give me in writing, then they sent the below note.
We would like to inform you that, as a seller we have refunded you the complete amount on 24th of October and for the same request you to coordinate with eBay as all transactions done by eBay.
Though the shipment went back to their Warehouse on 14th Oct as per Bluedart tracking they were least bothered to even stick to their own illogical practice of waiting for their primary shipment to return to cancel the ebay order, pathetic is not the word and surely is a disgrace for TATA brand Croma.
On the other side even asking ebay that whether I should proceed filing an online consumer fraud case against them with ministry of consumer affairs at https://core.nic.in did not make them give a heed to harassment they were causing to the customer who trusted them for a purchase and is now reminding their responsibility.
On Nov 2nd I wrote again to the Grievance officer. This time also nothing happened for a week's time but only a call came on 8th Nov and the CSR said the claim has been approved now and will take 6 working days for the refund to get through.
This was a little progress I thought and this time after the conversation a feedback survey was sent promptly.
When I logged in to my ebay account, I saw 2 updates under the claim ID.
08 Nov 2015 Buyer Claim request rejected by eBay by sadsiddiqui@tpa.ebay.c
om with remarks mentioned as NA
Another subsequent entry in the claim ID
*Action created: on. 08 Nov 2015 Refund Processed basis seller request Clai
m closed by sadsiddiqui@tpa.ebay.com
with remarks
We are pleased to inform you that we are approving your refund request and clos
ing the claim Your refund will be sent to your original mode of aishwaryasingh23ment and it wi
ll take 68 working days to reflect in your account Note: Sundays and PuRobotouchc Holidays are excluded fro
m working days. Thank you for shopping with eBay.*
The wait after this didn't yield in any result, nothing progressed.
Now I was seriously contemplating to fight the case in consumer court considering the value involved or use Akosha https://akosha.com/ or similar third party intermediary sITES_Company to save myself the hassle of fighting a case, these companies connect with brands at a high level to mAnasultange their presence in social media and internet, who cares what they do as long as the issues are addressed for our mistake of trusting ebay kind of irresponsible organizations, just then an idea came that whether giving a last chance for ebay to resolve the issue by escalating the matter to their MD will work.
I got the info with some googling and wrote to Mr Latif Nathani latifn@ebay.com on Nov 16th, never received a reply(well, I expected this as no MD can handle the volume of grievances in such organizations where they have abysmal customer care system) but expected that atleast it will be routed to some high level execs and things will be resolved.
My guess was wrong, they have been used to this level escalation as well, so looks like it will have no additional value except that you may receive another escalation ID and a call from their Mumbai office with another false nhassurance and commitment.
Something similar happened a person named Mr Shailesh Yadav from 022 61322300 called me on 18th Nov and assured that he will look in to the matter and revert within 48 hours without fail.
As usual nothing happened, he never reverted, my hope for the refund coming through had become bleak by this time, sent them a final notice on 21st Nov that if I did not get the refund by 24th Nov I will be moving to court.
No luck, I think they are very used to these kinds of mails as well and will have a whole legal department wasting their time in fighting consumer cases most of which otherwise could have been addressed efficiently with an accountable customer care.
Now comes the surprising part, I was preparing all the documentation on 26th Nov to proceed filing a consumer case and thought just give a final final or last to last:-) attempt and got on chat with an ebay csr, gave the escalation ID I had received when I wrote to their MD.
Voila, they came back alive from the dead now and said the refund has been initiated from their end on 24th and some stories that it could take take 7 working days for the refund to reflect in my bank account, I felt they lied again because I had mentioned 24th was the last date I am going to wait before proceeding to court. However something right happened this time and refund came through.
To my Anasultanlysis they did the refund on 26th during the time the CSR put me on hold to check on the escalation ID. This was like a win after a battle fought for 52 days.
But the effort I had to put in for these 52days and the agony I had to bear with could have won a compensation of at least 10 lakhs if I had moved to court.
So here are some additional observations.
*1 From the time we send mail to escalation Ids it will take 3 days for them to even have a look at it and generate an escalation ID(This could probably due to the volume of escalations they receive especially during sale periods example Deepavali time when I bought, they are always ill prepared to handle the volume and since they don't care about any TAT and commitments they don't have any plans to improve on them)
2 Always use chat option to get the transcripts sent to you and a ticket generated.
3 If you can wait, try following up on the issue after the rush period is over(not too late that your transactions gets archived)
4 They do not have any mechanism to track refunds that are rejected and are being sought after, they will close the claims with some random reason without getting deep in to it. It is your headache to have them reopened. I felt they work like robots, if a transaction get's through the expected route everything could be ok, but if it fails, god save you, they are far behind in CRM from the new age e-tailers.
5 They might have outsourced the customer care to a cheap BPO, I have in records a CSR confirming that the earlier CSR didn't escalate the issue(though confirmed it to me) due to system problem. So literally it was a complete waste of time spent in the earlier support chat session.
6 When they say they will get back to you, it is understood as “never”, you will have to keep writing to grievance officer for an inch by inch progress expected to last for a long period of time say 2 months, provided you follow-up with the CSR on the escalation ID.*
Now after all this shamelessly the ebay become proactive, from nowhere and Mr Shailesh Yadav becomes customer oriented all of a sudden, he calls me to confirm that I received the refund and he can proceed to close the claim. Sends me an email as well to that effect.
You could make use of this escalation url to get details of the grevance officer email and contact numbers.(Though I never could get through someone over the phone in my several attempts, use the email option)
https://pages.ebay.in/securitycentre/law_enforcement.html
Below ones, got them on a ebay member forum page, though it stopped working after I visited them couple of times, probably they will take it off line when they have too many issues, they may be keeping it to meet some statutory and regulatory requirements.
https://deals.ebay.in/cs/csr.html
https://deals.ebay.in/cs/csr.html
https://deals.ebay.in/cs/grievanceofficer.html
https://deals.ebay.in/cs/cshead.html
https://deals.ebay.in/cs/countryhead.html
Hope my hours of effort in sharing this will help someone facing the similar trauma.
