Monday 19 December 2005

Trying to buy from ebuyer

I’ve always had a dim view of ebuyer since I read around 100:1 bad press on google searches before I attended a job interview there.

But its hard to see how that preconception could be the cause of my experiences, which (see part 3) possibly will have a happy ending after all.

Part 1


As I said, I’m not inclinded to order from ebuyer, the consensus I discovered was that if you get what you ordered on time, then everything is fine, if not then you are doomed.

A colleague is fortunate to never have had the problem and suggested I order from ebuyer. We needed some company supplies… so ebuyer it was. Idiots.

Within seconds of me placing the order, ebuyer cancelled the order without reason. When the goods didn’t arrive I discovered this, and ordered again, this time with next day shipping. I figured I ought to get next day shipping free as ebuyer cancelled the order, but it would cost more in my time to get through on support that the free shipping was worth.

Well… I placed 2 more orders with ebuyer for the same things; each one cancelled without reason.

2 or 3 support calls and numerous etickets later my order was re-instated and shipped.

This experience was too hard. I knew I should have gone with CPC.

part 2


Well, this time I had a bigger order, nearly £200, and my colleague suggested ebuyer again. Well… we have an online account, so why not!

But within seconds of my order it has been cancelled - again without reason!

I’ve been here before, so I’m straight on the phone. The call handler suggests that it is some kind of security screening! Since when did screening cancel an order without warning? Without giving me a chance to sort it out? Will it ever come out of “screening”? And how do I cancel a cancelled order to stop it coming out of screening if I decide to get it elsewhere? Why isn’t it called screening? I think she’s talking rubbish so I call back again.

The seconds call handler puts me on hold twice to consult someone else and suggests that some element of our billing data is on their fraud list, but can’t tell me any more. She offers to have someone in accounts phone me before 5.00pm. As I ordered next day delivery this doesn’t impress me much, so I say that if they can call in the next half an hour we’ll try it, but if not I’ll be ordering from somewhere else.

I meant CPC of course who charge decent prices and and a decent returns policy and lots of special offers.

Part 3


Hey! Someone at ebuyer phone back! It turns out that our address is on their negative list for no good reason. The negative list is a clever piece of process (i imagine) that involves annoying customer by deleting their orders without explaining why. My most excellent call handler (who is new to ebuyer) will attempt to resurrect my order (apart from 6 belink cat5e cable economizers that I since orderd from CPC). If she manages this, then she earns a top class complimentary email as feedback that she can show to her boss. 3 cheers for I____ who is new to ebuyer and lets hope she doesn’t get tainted.

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