Notes From Cuckoo Island

One of my email accounts was hacked two weeks ago, on 3rd October.

I only know this because eBay sent me a message they were about to remove £359.82 from my bank for listing charges. My interest whetted, I logged on to find I was selling 18 classic cars I’d never set eyes on. (I know I’m at that stage where I go into a room and can’t remember what for, but I’m rather hopeful that listing 18 classic cars that don’t belong to me is an affliction that resides in a time far into the future).

Naturally, I immediately contacted said site to let them know this was a fraud. They suspended my account for a couple of hours while they did whatever they had to do their end, and advised me also to contact the fraud department of my bank. Which I did.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN INFORMATION OF A HIGHLY DISTRESSING NATURE. READERS OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION (I’M INCLUDING ME IN THAT) ARE ADVISED TO LOOK AWAY NOW.*

* (Makes typing a bit difficult, but my spelling’s not what it was, anyway).

eBay refunded me swiftly. My bank (not going to mention the name, but – just like Nigel Farage – it’s not Coutts *sniggers*) also refunded me. Meaning I had two refunds for the price of one. Free delivery, too. And they wonder why the high street is dying.

Of course, I didn’t expect to keep both refunds, but I also didn’t expect to have – so far – expended 13 hours of my time (not exaggerating) on the phone over the past couple of weeks, attempting to persuade either eBay or my bank to let me keep one of them, because they have both informed me that due to the other refunding me, they are going to reclaim their own refunds. Leaving me with no refund at all.

So far, I have spoken to Arlena, Ayush, David, Gertha, Hannah, Magala, Genesis, Selma, Daniel, Steve, Joy, Aurora, and Crystal.  (I also have the dates and times, should you be interested. Don’t be shy about asking). Everyone tells me something different from the last person.  I have been told someone will call me in 6 hours – doesn’t happen – and that a manager will call me in 10 minutes – doesn’t happen.  I spoke to them at 1am last Wednesday, and subsequently from 10am – 2pm, backwards and forwards with my bank. On Friday evening – another 75 minutes on the phone – eBay told me the money wouldn’t be removed from my bank, before an email on Saturday morning, informing me the money had already been charged.

I had already lodged 9 complaints with my bank, before the woman from the complaints department rang last Thursday to say there was no way the bank *couldn’t* not recover the money (keep up), but that it didn’t matter because:

a) I had enough money in my account to cover both themselves and eBay taking the money back

b) when they did both take it back again, I just had to argue with eBay to return it, so what was the problem?

And thus complaint #10 was born.

Meanwhile, I have been documenting this sad tale on Twitter. (Formerly known as Twitter, still known as Twitter. Bad luck, Elon). One of the multiple eBay Twitter accounts commented on my thread that they were sorry this was happening, and if I’d follow them, they could message me and sort it all out. So I did.

I then noticed they had one follower. Me.

“Have you got a WhatsApp number?” they asked. “We can definitely refund your money.” Which was odd, since I’ve already been refunded. But what the hell, this was an adventure (don’t get out much), so I gave them my WhatsApp number, and after a minute or two, my phone rang.

“Yes, we’ll give you your money back, but first you have to speak to the manager,” cooed an East African voice. “Don’t go away, he’ll call you in 5 minutes.”

Sure enough, 5 minutes later, another call. “Hello,” said an East African voice, I’m the manager.”

“That’s nice,” I replied.

“You can hear my voice is different from the last guy, yes?” he said. [This is absolutely true]

“Where are you calling from?” I asked.

“Nairobi,” he said. “The eBay office in Nairobi. I’ve looked into it and can give you your money back.”

“But you don’t know anything about me – not even the name of my eBay account,” I pointed out.

“I know about you,” he replied. “You’re 72 years old.”

The cheek of it!

“No, I’m not,” I said. (I would have said that had I actually been 72 years old). “I think you’re scamming me.”

“Don’t you want us to help you?!” he said, a bit narky. “You don’t want your money back?!”

Sigh. I hung up, blocked him, and informed everyone on Twitter it was a scam account. (Since removed).

An entertaining diversion, but let’s get back to the main plotline.

Yesterday morning (Monday), I wrote a heartfelt letter to the Head Bod at eBay UK, after which one of her lackeys – Chief Deputy Assistant For Pissing Off Already Pissed Off Customers – called me, and went on a loop for 40 minutes about why they needed to take their money back (for god’s sake!), how I had “instructed” my bank to do chargeback stuff I haven’t instructed it to do (I don’t even know that that is), and telling me I had to make it clear to them to stop it, whatever it is (I’m sure it must be something) because it was costing eBay money. No matter I’ve also spent hours on the phone to the bank (want another list of names?) and they won’t listen to me about anything.

Chief Deputy Assistant Yada Yada Yada did email me a letter on headed notepaper to send to the bank explaining the situation, with screenshots of stuff I’m not even going to try to describe. (On reflection, I think it might be the flight plan for Thunderbird 2). After another 50 minutes on the phone to the bank, attempting, but failing, to elicit an email address from them so I could do that, it’s now Tuesday evening, and we’re still no further on.

And yes, someone from the bank is going to call me back about, oh I don’t know what, and at this point, who bloody cares, while another person entirely will call me back about complaint number 10, because that’s a completely different department of not calling customers back from the first department of not calling customers back.

In the meantime, if anyone’s got some spare sanity they’d like to offload at a reasonable price,* you know where to find me.

*

*can collect if local