Days after eBay vice-president Jeff Jordan publicly apologized for ongoing billing problems at eBay, online forums were still ablaze with complaints. Some eBay members report eBay has overcharged their accounts. Other users report that they are unable to list additional items for sale, and many also appear to be dissatisfied with the way eBay has communicated with them.

The glitches are a result of a new billing system eBay began rolling out in February. The conversion process created chaos to a certain percentage of seller accounts, a problem that has yet to be fixed. (See Sidebar http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m06/i30/s02 for a detailed account of the new billing-system conversion process.) eBay refused to reveal how many of the 45 million active registered user accounts were affected. There is one more group of eBay users to be converted over to the new system in July.

Last week, eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy said, "We acknowledge (the billing problem) is incredibly frustrating." But he stands by the methods eBay has used to communicate with those affected by the problem and the eBay community in general.

Durzy said eBay posted a message on its main Announcement Board on April 8 about the problem (http://www2.ebay.com:80/aw/marketing.shtml#2004-04-08134037). The announcement linked to a discussion thread on eBay's forums where users could look for updates about the problem, he said (http://digbig.com/4bjbm). In addition, Durzy said eBay sent an email on April 8 to all users affected by the problem.

Lynn Reedy, Senior Vice President, Product, Development and Architecture, said COO Maynard Webb directed them to add customer service to handle the problem, saying "Let's make sure we have enough customer support people on this to make sure people get answers."

Reedy said people who responded to the announcement and notification email on April 8 had to wait 24 hours for an email response from eBay. She said the response time is now 12 hours. She said the first time a customer uses the eBay Web form to file a complaint or question, eBay answers with an email. She said if they ask a follow-up question, they receive a phone call.

Nancy Spaulding, a seller who picketed outside the convention center at eBay's user conference last week to protest the billing problems (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m06/i23/s01), said she did not get a phone call until a reporter from PC World talked to her and then spoke with eBay.

Durzy said the reason eBay pointed people to a discussion thread in the initial announcement and did not post updates to the announcement boards is because "we don't want to create panic and get emails from everyone – queues were already 24 hours to answer questions. And sometimes you are creating more questions than answers when posting (such an announcement)," he said.

But eBay has not updated the discussion thread in weeks. A look at the forum discussion where users were directed for updates is now 69 pages long with 2,731 posts. eBay moderators have left no updates in the most recent 40 pages reviewed by AuctionBytes. Spaulding said the last time a moderator posted a message in the forums was on May 5 (page 15 of the thread).

A new thread started on June 26 ("Check Your Accounts!! Overbilling Started Again!!") reports that some user accounts are showing new double-billing errors as of that date. In the 3 days since the thread was started, no eBay moderators have left messages to explain what is going on. And a locked thread, "Updates on Billing Issues," has no explanations of the problems, why they aren't fixed, and when users can expect to see an end to the problems.

Since April, several media outlets have reported on the problem, including AuctionBytes, Reuters, PC World, San Jose Mercury News, The Age, and Information Week. In one discussion board, posters say they have contacted the SEC to investigate eBay over the billing glitches. John Nestor of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s Public Affairs department said the SEC does not investigate consumer issues, but does investigate matters in cases where a company is over-billing in order to over-inflate its revenue numbers. Nestor said it is the SEC's policy to neither confirm nor deny reports of investigations.

Spaulding has spent hours poring over her invoices trying to understand them, and has not listed items on eBay since May due to her concerns about the problems. "It's overwhelming," she said. She's gotten no satisfactory answers from eBay, she said, and reports that her account balance changes every day.

With $20,000 of inventory on hand, Spaulding is not sure she will ever sell on eBay again. "I don't know. The treatment has been horrendous. (eBay) is messing with people's financial welfare,...I just want them to be responsible," she said.

Articles about eBay's Billing Glitch

PCWorld, 6/25/04 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116687,00.asp

AuctionBytes.com, 6/23/04 http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m06/i23/s01

InformationWeek, 6/21/04 http://digbig.com/4bhnx

The Age, 6/14/04 http://digbig.com/4bjbg

Mercury News, 6/8/04 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8869822.htm

AuctionBytes.com, 5/17/04 http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m05/i17/s02

PC World, 4/30/04 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115941,00.asp

AuctionBytes.com, 4/9/04 http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m04/i09/s01