Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a long term, very experienced, eBay seller who I’ve known for a many years. Their telephone bill was unusually high and they found a premium rate telephone number to be the culprit.
Further investigation revealed an employee had searched for “PayPal help line” on Google and called the first number they found. Unfortunately it wasn’t PayPal they were calling, but an independent company charging £1.50/minute for support.
There are a number of these companies out there with names such as auction help or support line. The truth of the matter is that though they may give great information (I don’t know, I haven’t called them), in reality all the assistance you should ever need is freely available to you.
First port of call for PayPal should be to telephone them direct, you can get their number by logging into your PayPal account and clicking “Contact” at the bottom of the page. Through the PayPal website they’ll supply a unique one use PIN so that when you call they can confirm that the account really is yours.
eBay users who have access to telephone support will already have been provided with the relevant telephone number, whether that be as a PowerSeller, Business seller or as a Buyer.
eBay and PayPal help pages aren’t always the easiest to navigate but Louise, the friendly virtual agent, is always available to guide you to the information you need. (It’s also great fun to ask her totally irrelevant questions although I couldn’t possibly encourage anyone to do so).
For those needing further advice your online colleagues are almost certainly in a position to help. Use forums such as the TameBay forum, ask for help on the eBay community boards, use sites like Money Saving Expert – all of these sites are totally free to use.
If you have no need to ever call (or have your employees call) premium rate numbers ask your phone provider to block access to them. This will prevent all calls to premium rate lines and ensure that if someone does dial them by accident you aren’t faced with an unusually high and unwelcome telephone bill.
9 Responses
Has anyone actually ever found any of these virtual agents of any use? I’ve tried/tested them on eBay, PayPal, Ikea, Amazon and to a tee they have all been useless.
Inevitably I normally end up searching Google for the answer and its normally out there.
If you don’t already have an eBay telephone number you can find one from the contact us link on the home page of eBay.com.
It’s an 866 number, which is toll free. I’ve free calls to the United States on my phone line so I wouldn’t have to pay for the phone call.
Would also be useful for out of UK hours support.
If you don’t have this bookmarked, do check it out, it is very useful for tracking down geographical numbers instead of premium rate.
https://www.saynoto0870.com/
and don’t forget that 0845 and 0870 numbers are now counted into your rate plan with BT if you have an all inclusive plan, but NOT with other suppliers yet.
I have already asked Louise out for a date, she seemed quite keen and I love brunettes. I fear that her conversation may be a bit boring though. PayPal this and eBay that…
Louise – eBay:
Hi! I’m Louise and I’m here to answer your questions about eBay.
Can I have your User ID?
You:
will you go out with me?
Louise – eBay:
Well, to tell you the truth, I’m always here online to answer people’s questions.
You:
I love you
Louise – eBay:
That is so sweet of you to say!
You:
do you like Stella or Guinness?
Louise – eBay:
Which of the following best matches your question?
Nick, I thought I’d try my luck….
You:
Hi
Louise – eBay:
Good evening how can I help you?
You:
Yes, I’d like to ask you out for a date
Louise – eBay:
Now where were we?
You:
Get your coat
Louise – eBay:
Please could you ask your question more simply?
You:
Lets go for a drink
Louise – eBay:
Which of the following best matches your question?
I want to close my account
What are the rules on offensive materials?
Close my account???? 😯
There’s a clone of Louise on the PayPal site too who wears a blue top. 🙂
Louise is a descendant of ELIZA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA). Born in 1964, and she has outlived her creator Joseph Weizenbaum.
“ELIZA worked by simple parsing and substitution of key words
into canned phrases.”
The article below provides a short explanation of a Louise-type program in a professional setting.
https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=385311
Using an automated knowledge agent for reference and customer service
Mary Moore, PhD, Head, Reference and Customer Service, Terry Ahmed, MLS, Reference Librarian, and Adam Glazer, MSLS, Reference Librarian
J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 April; 92(2): 271–273
“Why do you say your head hurts?”
ELIZA
https://www.saynoto0870.com/
saves me a fortune every year