Lack of service.

Iam often buying stuff off the internet for the business. I use Ebay to buy old laptop bits etc and often you can get some great deals, but recently I have had some bad experiences with sellers. Individuals who sell on Ebay are great: they take care to describe the item an package it well but frankly businesses on Ebay need to take more care in what they do.

The case in point regards the purchase of two external disk drive cases. I had a customer who had the older IDE drive from an old machine and they wanted some data off the drive, however their computer only had SATA so their was no chance to add it as a secondary drive internally, only to get a usb IDE external drive. I found a seller on Ebay with a good reputation and 30,000+ feedbacks and was confident that they would do well, indead the stuff arrived the next day, but I spent the next two weeks sorting out the problem. The trouble was they sent usb SATA external drives!

I emailed them and they first asked me to email pictures of the problem through Ebay. Now the trouble was that Ebay does not allow you to send pictures through their system, so I emailed them directly. Their next email said the first email was a mistake and replacement would be sent along with a prepaid envelope to return the other item, however I was to give the returning item back to the postie who was delivering the replacement. Now I know couriers with do this but not the post office.

The replacement item arrived five days later but it was just one item, not both which I had clearly stated in my original email. The prepaid envelope was only big enough for one item so thats what I sent back, then I emailed them and they said I would get another replacement. That arrived, again five days later, so I spent two weeks sorting this mess out.

You would think that would be my only problem, but no I bought a load of stuff off Amazon. With the stuff direct from Amazon their was not a problem, but they have vendors who sell through Amazon and I bought 100 RJ45 plugs from such a vendor. I was running a bit low and was about to do a cabling job, but what I got was quite astonishing. I recieved a single RJ45 sent by parcel post! Again I complained and did eventually get the right stuff but that was a week later.

Iam dont appreciate spending my time sorting out other peoples problems.