So you have a question? Has something gone very wrong and you dont understand what to do? Well, fair enough. Here are the questions that I hear all the instant from buyers.

Does eBay have a Customer Service Department I Can Phone?

eBay are notoriously hard to contact, should you ever absolutely need to it sometimes seems like they expect the page to run itself. You might electronic mail them, as long as you do not have your heart set on a coherent response: go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html. You might have better luck in a live help webchat here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/n-livehelp.html.

Only eBay Power Sellers (sellers with a very high feedback rating) get to phone customer service. If you really want to try your luck, type ebay [your country] phone number into a search engine and youll probably find something. Unfortunately, the chances are you will have gone to all that trouble for the privilege of leaving an answerphone communication .

It might seem cruel, but imagine the number of all the people who would call eBay every day with the silliest questions if they gave out their phone number everywhere. Its Wild West nature is, in a way, part of its charm.

eBay Sent Me an Email Saying Theyre Going to Close My Account. What Should I Do?

This e-mail asks for your password, right? Its a scam, an attempt to frighten you, contruct you give up your details and then steal your account. eBay will never inquire of for your password or any other account details by e-mail. eBay say that you should only ever enter your password on pages that whose addresses start with http://signin.ebay.com/. They even offer a special Account Guard as part of their toolbar, which lets you check that youre not giving your password to a dodgy fake site. You can read more here: http://pages.ebay.com/toolbar/accountguard_1.html.

It Seems Too Good to be True. How Does eBay Make Money?

For you, the buyer, eBay is costless. Sellers, though, pay all sorts of fees: a listing fee for each product they list, a final worth fee (a percentage of what the merchandise sold for). They might they pay optional fees for extra services, including Buy it Now, excess pictures, reserve prices, highlighting the auction, putting it in bold, listing it first in search results or even putting it on the front page. You might see a full list of fees at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html.

Its obviously value it to the sellers, though, or they wouldnt carry on using eBay. The system is quite successful , and basically forces both eBay and the sellers to keep their profit margins as low as possible otherwise prices will simply go too high and the buyers will stop buying.

How Safe is eBay?

Well, as it happens, thats the subject of our next e mail! All of eBays safety services for buyers and sellers are in one place, called SafeHarbor. SafeHarbor handles fraud prevention and investigation, helps with dispute resolution and keeps rule-breakers in check. Read all about it next measure , and be safe.