About a month ago, I started selling on eBay again. For me, this means lots of mailing envelopes, trips to the post office, and PayPal.
Ahh, PayPal!
I am certain there are a number of you thinking about your own PayPal mishaps (and if you are, e-mail them to me!).
But, anyway, in this case, it wasn’t really the service that stunk. Surprisingly, it was more the difficulty of using a business’ website.
So, I had sold items on eBay and had actually made some money! But when I took my PayPal card out of my wallet, I realized it had been expired for quite some time. - Whoops! - Apparently, it had been a while since I had eBayed and actually had to use that card.
I went to the website to reorder a card - you know, one that wasn’t expired, one I could actually make use of. - Simple task, right? Right. Easily executed, right? Wrong.
Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong.
First, the PayPal website told me I couldn’t request another card, because my previous card was never activated. Mind you, this was true, but silly because I’ve had multiple PayPal debit cards (renewed ones, I mean). But whatever. Fine.
Hmm. It seems the only option they left me with was to “Report card lost or stolen.”
Okay. Sounds good. I’ve lost it. - I slowly shift my eyes to the card sitting on the table next me. - Yup, lost it.
Click!
Okay, good! Now, I can request a new one! I filled out all of my information. Name, address, phone number, all that good stuff. More useless information and…done.
Click!
The address you’ve entered is too long, so we’ve shortened it for you. Please verify that it is correct.
What? - I am baffled. - Um, no.. you’ve shortened it. It is now wrong.
I look around the page frantically, but I don’t see the “No, you’ve ruined everything!” button.
Nothing.
There is nothing obscenely long about my address! I mean, I live in an apartment, I have an apartment number, but besides that…nothing.
After fiddling around with options on the site, I gave in and called customer service.
I hate doing this. Mainly because A) The person on the other end of the phone is very foreign and has a thick accent and I can not for the life of me understand them (better yet, they can’t understand me, OR my problem), B) They put me on hold for entirely too long which causes me to want to gauge my eyes out and give up completely, or C) They just can not help me at all.
The whole experience is frustrating for all parties involved. No one wants to have to call customer service.
Sure enough, a woman with a very thick accent answers the phone. Ten minutes later, after trying to explain my issue to her, as patiently as possible, she “transfers” me.
“I am transfer you. Please hold.”
The word transfer - in the customer service world - means one of two things: either they have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about/what your problem is, so they make you someone else’s problem. Or…actually that’s pretty much it. "Escalation".
Eyeroll.
Bev finally gets on the line.
Now, let’s take a moment here to point out that Bev is absolutely awesome. I can’t remember the last customer service experience I had ending in such a good way (or, at least, as good as it could have). Bev was frustrated with me - No, not with me, but…well, she seemed to empathize. Bev knew the website and my address problem were both awful and inconvenient and she made sure that we fixed it.
I explained the problem to her. She understood, yet couldn’t understand why it did that. Throughout the phone call, she would randomly say things like,
“Hang on, let me see if there is a shorter way to abbreviate Boulevard…” Shorter than “Blvd” is what she meant. And the answer was no.
"Oh, now it edited out your entire apartment number. Hmm..."
Facepalm.
Finally, about 25 minutes on the phone with Bev (my champion of a CSR), confusion between the two of us, and some mangled form of my address later, it was done.
“Bev? Are you…sure that the card will get to me with this address?”
“Nope. But we’ll know in about a week or two.”
(We both laughed.)
It wasn’t her fault. The website design was completely flawed. Editing addresses unnecessarily is bizarre. Bev certainly did everything in her power to fix it. It was like my tweet was too long and I had to take out some key words - I could only hope my followers could still read the mess I was left with.
And, guess what? They did! I mean, I did get my card!
My mailman scolded me, though: he said he never wants me to have something addressed that way ever again. We're all confused. But I did get my card.
PayPal.com, Your Service Website Stinks!
No comments:
Post a Comment