As a previous post here testifies, I bought a Dragon Touch X10 tablet almost 3 years ago. I went from being thrilled with my purchase, to being appalled at how sub-standard the Android OS really is - at least Android's 4.4.x (Kitkat) to 5.1.0 (Lollipop) anyway!
Fast forward, a few months, I discovered that despite the rhetoric from 'official' sources, an 'un-rooted' Android sucks - there are just too many 'interesting' apps that require a rooted OS to work properly. Enter Kingo rooting.
This was a god-send, or so I thought, when I originally went that route (sic). With little effort, I ended up with a rooted X10, and with no apparent down-side - ie. everything worked as expected. Fast-forward another year, something fatally screwed up my tablet's OS, to the point that it would no longer even boot. After freshly re-installing Android, rooting seemed a pre-requisite, so back to Kingo I went. This time however, although I ended up with a rooted device, also included was a load of obtrusive crap that made the gains pale in comparison - the tablet powering on & off to load ads, when on charge, every minute or so, was the deal-breaker - one fresh Android install later, I was back with a unrooted X10.
But the thing that really sucked about Kingo was, part of the rooting process required that it be installed on Windows (Win7 in my case) first, and immediately on doing so, Windows would puke up a "...not genuine" error - and nothing could correct this problem. Hell, I even reinstalled Windows/Kingo twice just to be sure that it was Kingo that was responsible - it was! So yeah, KINGO SUCKS!!!
But even back then, there was another 'solution' available for rooting the X10, but it seemed way too complicated. For one, the initial step recommended that BBQLinux be installed, as this included many Android-development tools. Being the lesser of two (Kingo) evils, I decided to go this route, but was disgusted to find that after the installation, the BBQLinux 'rolling-release' encountered an error when I tried to update it. Dejected, there things lay, until now...
Fast-forward to today, I decided to have another go rooting the X10. My main fear all along was that 'flashing' it manually would 'brick' the tablet. Two years on, I no longer cared too much if that occurred, particularly since despite almost no use, the screen had developed a fault - a single line of pixels, from top to bottom, are permanently switched on.
The only thread I've found that deals specifically with rooting the Dragon Touch X10 tablet is available here. My first attempt resulted in failure, though thankfully, didn't result in a bricked device. The error I made was in not following the instructions 'to the letter'. I had seen that, viewed from Linux, the X10 partition type was a "mmcblkxx' type. Based on this, I flashed - apparently, successfully! - the X10 with the recovery boot-loader 'TWRP'. On rebooting the X10 however, nothing appeared to have changed - I booted to the same screen that the X10 had always booted to in recovery mode. It was only as an afterthought, when I checked the X10's partition-type from the ADB console (check the link provided) that I was stunned to discover that my X10's partition type was not 'mmcblkxx' but 'nand'.
Reflashing the X10 with the alternative TWRP 'nand' image file, then rebooting, produced a very different result - ie. the new TWRP recovery bootloader! All that was then necessary was to use it to flash the SuperSU (linked-to from site) file to the tablet. And Presto - one Rooted-device!!!
The one other thing I discovered while doing this, and what prompted me to make this post, was that there is no need to install BBQLinux 'just' to root the X10. Even my ancient Mint 17.3 (as well as Deepin 15.8) has the required ADB-tools in their repositories, needing just a few hundred KB's of downloads to achieve the same results.
30 November 2018
16 August 2018
Windows 7 - Renaming Device-names in Device Manager.
This post is mainly for my own future benefit, as I'm bound to forget the following procedure before long. Hopefully though, someone else may stumble across this in the fullness of time and find it useful.
Needless to say, I've come across this issue before. Admittedly, the problem is psychological in nature, as it really doesn't effect Window's operation, but I find it really frustrating when playing with Window device-drivers.
Insert a piece of hardware on your pc, install its driver and hopefully everything works. Remove said-hardware, reboot pc, and Windows detects this and acts accordingly. The problem arises when the same hardware is then reinserted. Windows again detects it, but doesn't start with a 'clean-slate', instead, using the same device-name, appends a "#2" to it. Do it again, and this number increases (#3 etc.), and continues upward with every removal/reinsertion - still just one device listing, with the same name, but an ever-increasing tail-end. Given the number of problems I have had with Window's drivers, I find this maddening!!!
The problem isn't helped by the number of 'solutions' out there either - dozens & dozens of them, though admittedly, some address simpler renaming issues, whereas (many) others are just well-meaning individuals that haven't read/understood the problem and are providing even simpler, though useless, answers. This problem has no simple fix, though there is more than one solution out there. The first one I came across (years ago!) involved using Regedit - tedious, but it did work. The latest & greatest fix, just googled, is much easier and takes a fraction of the time. But enough of the preamble.
The first step is to create a system-variable - 'devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices'. Working from the Start menu, left-click 'Computer'->'Properties', click 'Advanced System settings', then select the 'Advanced' tab on the pop-up window. Now click 'Environment variables', then 'Add', and name the new variable 'devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices' as mentioned. Give it a value of 1.
Now all there's left to do is (important) log out/back-in, and open Device Manager. Go to the 'View' menu option and select 'Show hidden items'. Of the Device causing offense, all items-names are now shown, including the all-important 'base-item' name. Just delete ALL of these names, scan for hardware changes, and Voila! Windows will reinstall the device's driver, using just the 'base-name' with no appended #x number.
Needless to say, I've come across this issue before. Admittedly, the problem is psychological in nature, as it really doesn't effect Window's operation, but I find it really frustrating when playing with Window device-drivers.
Insert a piece of hardware on your pc, install its driver and hopefully everything works. Remove said-hardware, reboot pc, and Windows detects this and acts accordingly. The problem arises when the same hardware is then reinserted. Windows again detects it, but doesn't start with a 'clean-slate', instead, using the same device-name, appends a "#2" to it. Do it again, and this number increases (#3 etc.), and continues upward with every removal/reinsertion - still just one device listing, with the same name, but an ever-increasing tail-end. Given the number of problems I have had with Window's drivers, I find this maddening!!!
The problem isn't helped by the number of 'solutions' out there either - dozens & dozens of them, though admittedly, some address simpler renaming issues, whereas (many) others are just well-meaning individuals that haven't read/understood the problem and are providing even simpler, though useless, answers. This problem has no simple fix, though there is more than one solution out there. The first one I came across (years ago!) involved using Regedit - tedious, but it did work. The latest & greatest fix, just googled, is much easier and takes a fraction of the time. But enough of the preamble.
The first step is to create a system-variable - 'devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices'. Working from the Start menu, left-click 'Computer'->'Properties', click 'Advanced System settings', then select the 'Advanced' tab on the pop-up window. Now click 'Environment variables', then 'Add', and name the new variable 'devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices' as mentioned. Give it a value of 1.
Now all there's left to do is (important) log out/back-in, and open Device Manager. Go to the 'View' menu option and select 'Show hidden items'. Of the Device causing offense, all items-names are now shown, including the all-important 'base-item' name. Just delete ALL of these names, scan for hardware changes, and Voila! Windows will reinstall the device's driver, using just the 'base-name' with no appended #x number.
2 March 2018
Paypal Customer Support - Incompetence personified...
Four emails later to what Paypal laughingly calls Customer Support, and I'm admitting defeat. Even though four(4) different people replied to my queries (List Of Shame: Ja, Surendren, Barani and Praveen) not one of these idiots could/would answer my question. In addition to my naming-and-shaming of the individuals involved, I'm also including our communications below.
To summarise briefly, I contacted Paypal to find out how I would go about returning monies to Ebay Sellers that had previously Refunded (via Paypal) the same amounts(s) for orders that had failed to arrive - see previous post for details. Prior to this, I had contacted Ebay's Customer Support and had been told;
Made sense. So I contacted Paypal;
Paypal Idiot No. 1's response;
My response included the ask-for Transaction ID number;
Paypal Idiot No. 2's response, ignoring entirely everything I had written;
Annoyed by this senseless reply, I shot off the following;
Paypal Idiot No. 3, also ignoring everything I had written, asks again for the same Transaction ID number, which I had already given twice;
Paypal Idiot No. 4's response;
And Paypal's Customer Support is back to passing the buck to Ebay, despite the fact that in my very first post I explain that I had first contacted Ebay and they had told me to contact Paypal.
Is this seriously what passes as acceptable Customer Support in the eyes of Paypal - either ignoring the query entirely, or fobbing Paypal users off with irrelevant generic Cut & Paste answers?
It's a disgrace. Shame on you Paypal.
Edit1:
Seen as Paypal's Customer Support was a no-hoper, I contacted Ebay's Customer Support instead, in a final cry for help.
As another order, placed on December 17, 2017 had arrived, I set about repaying what had been refunded to me via the 're-order-items-to-repay' route - only to discover that this Seller had 'blacklisted' me! I can neither order items from his Ebay store or contact him by email. So the only option available to me was to ask Ebay to contact the Seller to my behalf and aprise him of the situation in order that I could repay him;
Here is the response I got from Ebay;
This dullard first implies that they understand my query, then "suggest" as a solution that I purchase similar items from a different Seller! Items that I am already in possession of - WTF!!!!! I'm getting the sense when dealing with Ebay/Paypal Customer Support, that I'm not dealing with real, thinking people, but some bewildering type of first generation AI that these clowns are trying to pass off as the real-deal. How else can someone seem so clueless?!?!?
I'm appalled at what Ebay & Paypal offer by way of Customer Support. It's truly a disgrace.
To summarise briefly, I contacted Paypal to find out how I would go about returning monies to Ebay Sellers that had previously Refunded (via Paypal) the same amounts(s) for orders that had failed to arrive - see previous post for details. Prior to this, I had contacted Ebay's Customer Support and had been told;
xxxxx, the easier way for you to pay the item you received is find the transaction in your PayPal account, look for seller's email and click to "send money" to it.
Made sense. So I contacted Paypal;
Hello. Although my question is about Refunds, Paypal's limited number of topic/sub-topic selections means I have to try and get my question answered this way. Simple problem, I have been Refunded money by a Chinese Ebay Seller because the order failed to arrive in a timely manner. Said order has since arrived and I am trying to return the refunded money to the Seller. The Paypal Refund information for this Seller lists his name (in Chinese characters (胥家良), plus his Ebay username (best-buy365) - THERE IS NO EMAIL ADDRESS LISTED!!! When I try to 'Send'money to the Seller, using 胥家良 or best-buy365, Paypal complains, saying it's an invalid name, and to enter a valid email address. How do I send money to a person when there is no email address listed in the Paypal Refund information? Or where do I find a users email address from their username?
Paypal Idiot No. 1's response;
Thank you for contacting PayPal Customer Support regarding your concern. I know this is important.
We’ve looked but are having trouble locating the specific transaction tied to your message. Can you help us out so we can provide a fast answer to your question? We look forward to helping you.
In most cases, any or all of the following information will help us identify the payment:
Transaction date and amount
Transaction ID number
email address of the other party in the transaction
eBay auction ID (if applicable)
We look forward to hear it from you.
It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.
Yours sincerely,
Ja
PayPal
My response included the ask-for Transaction ID number;
Hello, that was a fast response!
The transaction ID in question is 08F9511676205873U. At least that's the main part of it - the Seller refunded in 2 parts for the same order ($26.96 and $1.46) - total $28.42.
And that's where it gets complicated! Some Ebay Sellers provide separate refunds for each item ordered. I don't know if you can access my Paypal Activity details, but it's presently a mess with Refund transactions from multiple Chinese Sellers. I ordered en-masse via Ebay in November/December, and presently only about half of the stuff I ordered has arrived. Multiple Chinese Sellers have already promptly Refunded my money when I put in a claim. But when/if a order finally turns up, I'd would like to repay the Seller in question.
And this is proving to be a problem. Why is there not a clickable button from a Refund transaction that will allow the Buyer to painlessly return payments? There is not even the Seller's email address available - the very thing that Paypal is demanding in order to 'Send' money. This makes little sense.
I hope you can provide an explanation/solution.
Paypal Idiot No. 2's response, ignoring entirely everything I had written;
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
Although PayPal and eBay are closely linked, we are separate companies and we don't have access to eBay's systems.
You can contact eBay Customer Support by email, live chat, or phone. Please visit www.ebay.co.uk for further information.
Sincerely,
Surendren
PayPal Protection Services
Annoyed by this senseless reply, I shot off the following;
What a pointless response, that is nothing short of insulting!
You (Paypal) asked me for the Refund transaction number of the Seller I am having problems with, which I gave - again, its;
08F9511676205873U
I realise that Ebay and Paypal are separate companies - that has noting to do with my query. I am talking solely about Paypal's site-interaction here.
So let me be specific, to which I require a specific answer.
For Paypal user 胥家良,
(3 Chinese characters, copied from the Refund Transaction's 'Seller info' in case it's being 'filtered-out' in the Sent email and you don't see it),
the Seller who Refunded my money, how do I get a valid Paypal email address? This I need in order to return to him the money he refunded.
How difficult can it be to provide this simple piece of information?
Paypal Idiot No. 3, also ignoring everything I had written, asks again for the same Transaction ID number, which I had already given twice;
Kindly provide the transaction id which is related to purchase of the item.I respond with a two-liner;
Yours sincerely,
Barani
PayPal
I have twice already (2 times!) supplied the transaction ID - so here it is agian for a third time;
Transaction ID: 08F9511676205873U
Paypal Idiot No. 4's response;
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
Although PayPal and eBay are closely linked, we are separate companies and we don't have access to eBay's systems.
You can contact eBay Customer Support by email, live chat, or phone. Please visit www.ebay.co.uk for further information.
You can contact eBay Customer Service by email or phone.
Here's how to contact eBay Customer Service:
Go to http://www.ebay.com/ and log in to your account.
Click Customer Support near the top of the page.
Click the Contact eBay tab.
Choose a topic that most closely relates to your issue.
eBay will provide an answer and, if applicable, further contact options by email or phone.
Sincerely,
Praveen
And Paypal's Customer Support is back to passing the buck to Ebay, despite the fact that in my very first post I explain that I had first contacted Ebay and they had told me to contact Paypal.
Is this seriously what passes as acceptable Customer Support in the eyes of Paypal - either ignoring the query entirely, or fobbing Paypal users off with irrelevant generic Cut & Paste answers?
It's a disgrace. Shame on you Paypal.
Edit1:
Seen as Paypal's Customer Support was a no-hoper, I contacted Ebay's Customer Support instead, in a final cry for help.
As another order, placed on December 17, 2017 had arrived, I set about repaying what had been refunded to me via the 're-order-items-to-repay' route - only to discover that this Seller had 'blacklisted' me! I can neither order items from his Ebay store or contact him by email. So the only option available to me was to ask Ebay to contact the Seller to my behalf and aprise him of the situation in order that I could repay him;
Hello. I could get no satisfaction from Paypal's Customer Support -http://omelettesbitsandbobs.blogspot.ie/2018/03/paypal-customer-support-incompetence.html.I am hoping you can help on a related matter though. A delayed order from another Ebay Seller (start-supership) that refunded me money has arrived, and I wish to return the money to him. Unfortunately, this Seller has apparently 'blacklisted' me, as when I try to repay him by re-ordering the items from his shop, I am told that the Seller refuses to sell to Buyers that fail to "meet his requirements." Plus, when I try to email him via Ebay, I am informed that the Seller is unable to answer my questions - so I have no means of contacting him!Would you contact him on my behalf and tell him I wish to return the money that he refunded me?Thanks.
Here is the response I got from Ebay;
xxxxx, I understand that you are a little confused and concerned on how you can repay the seller for the item you wanted. . I am a buyer myself and I have had experiences of having difficulties buying an item. Based on the information when I try to checked your account actually it indicate that the seller may have set up something in their listing that is blocking you from purchasing these items. I would just like to let you know that an eBay seller can set up in their listing and block certain buyers according to their requirements. We offer a number of ways for sellers to prevent and handle problems that may arise during transactions. What I can suggest is to find similar item that you can purchased since you cannot purchased the item again with the seller (start-supership).I hope this information is helpful. Please let us know if you have other concern.
Thanks for choosing eBay , we value your business. You have a great day!
Yours truly,
Jay O.
eBay Customer service
This dullard first implies that they understand my query, then "suggest" as a solution that I purchase similar items from a different Seller! Items that I am already in possession of - WTF!!!!! I'm getting the sense when dealing with Ebay/Paypal Customer Support, that I'm not dealing with real, thinking people, but some bewildering type of first generation AI that these clowns are trying to pass off as the real-deal. How else can someone seem so clueless?!?!?
I'm appalled at what Ebay & Paypal offer by way of Customer Support. It's truly a disgrace.
24 February 2018
New-Agers and the mythical Dinar Revaluation (RV)...
Time for another quick rant. As one of my first posts here indicated, I started paying attention to New-age stuff on the Internet around 2006-7. Even way back then, talk of the enormous potential profits through buying Iraqi Dinars was rife.
For those out of the loop, prior to America's illegal invasion of Iraq - which history has shown was little more than an Oil-grab - the Iraqi currency, the Dinar, was if memory serves, valued around $3.50 (1 Dinar = $3.50). It became almost worthless overnight once the invasion commenced.
After America had destroyed the country's infrastructure, some bright spark(s) obviously thought that there was money to be made in selling the now-worthless Dinars, and set their sights firmly on the New-Agers.
These gullible NA'ers have been mind-fcuked for well over a decade now with this nonsense - the whole Dinar-RV/NESARA thing. I recall an old geezer, Mark Huber, and his devotees pumping this for all their worth back then. Things didn't turn out too well for him though. He ended up being committed by his family, who posters back then suspected were doing so just to protect their inheritance, and his followers, who were living in his house, ended up being evicted. I remember reading through their 'conference-call' transcripts on the incident back then and how Huber's so-called Followers were more concerned about being evicted than about Mark's predicament - so, his family probably did the right thing! Strangely, I cannot find any record of any of this now on the internet. There's very little to be found about Mark Huber himself. Intriguingly, a net-search brings up his own site, but it hasn't seen any activity since 2009 - so who's been paying to host it for the past 8-9 years?
Anyway, onto the point of this post. I have had kauilepele's site tabbed on my browser for years. He basically links to stuff I like to read through, often just to have a chuckle over - Ben Fulford being a prime example. He generally does a good job too. One pet-peeve of mine concerns his own posts. He seems completely incapable of typing more than a few words before the compulsion to apply italics, bold, underline, single-quotes, double-quotes, capitalise etc. kicks in. Check them out if you don't believe me - insane!
But, he's also been linking to stuff related to the Dinar RV, without comment, for as long as I've been reading his site. Garbage along the lines of the ZAP posts, where not only is the RV a 'done-deal', it's happening next Monday, when the banks open. Yep, this crud went from promising instant wealth next quarter, to next month, to next week, to next day! When these failed to materialise, ZAP gingerly side-steps the issue by simply failing to comment on the latest prediction failure. These are my recollections of reading through these ZAP posts from YEARS ago. I presume it's still the same old tosh that's being repeated today. One thing I'd bet money on though - each ZAP post is still begging for donations.
In perhaps the last year, Kauilepele had stopped posting about the Dinar RV entirely - until today that is!
Here, he reveals information that was new to me, but that I'd always suspected, namely, that he's a Dinar holder. Yep, he bought his back in 2010 and has been waiting for the gravy-train to roll on in ever since! Breaking his RV-silence is the result of him having seen this video, which I haven't watched, but presume is just another attempt at keeping the faithful (read, gulllible) distracted. A more tempered interpretation of a Dinar-RV if you will - "it's taken a while, but you'll still end up rich in the end, believe us..."
In his audio post, he even admits that he now believes that many of these Dinar-related sites/posts are complete "crap" - then back-peddles on this new-found realisation by falling for yet-more BS (new video) along the lines of, "you'll get your money when the 'arrests' are completed". Gawd...
But what really 'grinds-my-gears' about all of this is that people like Kauilepele set themselves up as being spiritually enlightened, yet see nothing immoral with trying to profit financially from the decimation of an entire country - never mind the infrastructure, there have been over 2,000,000 Iraqis killed since America's oil-grab. It is particularly obnoxious since Kauilepele is an American himself - as I suspect the vast majority of the 'Dinar-holders' out there are. You cannot claim to reject America's illegal occupation of Iraq while simultaneously trying to profit from it - at least if you have a spiritual bone in your body. There is not a jot of difference between this and being ok with getting rich from owning stock in an Arms manufacturer.
Yet Spiritual Neophytes like Kauilepele continue to spew meaningless drivel like "if it resonates with you..." in order to make more palatable, if only to themselves, positions which are completely untenable to anyone with any moral fibre.
And also remember, America's war in Vietnam left the Vietnamese Dong as worthless as the Iraqi Dinar, and it never recovered. But I guess realities like that don't "resonate" with Kauilepele and his ilk.
For those out of the loop, prior to America's illegal invasion of Iraq - which history has shown was little more than an Oil-grab - the Iraqi currency, the Dinar, was if memory serves, valued around $3.50 (1 Dinar = $3.50). It became almost worthless overnight once the invasion commenced.
After America had destroyed the country's infrastructure, some bright spark(s) obviously thought that there was money to be made in selling the now-worthless Dinars, and set their sights firmly on the New-Agers.
These gullible NA'ers have been mind-fcuked for well over a decade now with this nonsense - the whole Dinar-RV/NESARA thing. I recall an old geezer, Mark Huber, and his devotees pumping this for all their worth back then. Things didn't turn out too well for him though. He ended up being committed by his family, who posters back then suspected were doing so just to protect their inheritance, and his followers, who were living in his house, ended up being evicted. I remember reading through their 'conference-call' transcripts on the incident back then and how Huber's so-called Followers were more concerned about being evicted than about Mark's predicament - so, his family probably did the right thing! Strangely, I cannot find any record of any of this now on the internet. There's very little to be found about Mark Huber himself. Intriguingly, a net-search brings up his own site, but it hasn't seen any activity since 2009 - so who's been paying to host it for the past 8-9 years?
Anyway, onto the point of this post. I have had kauilepele's site tabbed on my browser for years. He basically links to stuff I like to read through, often just to have a chuckle over - Ben Fulford being a prime example. He generally does a good job too. One pet-peeve of mine concerns his own posts. He seems completely incapable of typing more than a few words before the compulsion to apply italics, bold, underline, single-quotes, double-quotes, capitalise etc. kicks in. Check them out if you don't believe me - insane!
But, he's also been linking to stuff related to the Dinar RV, without comment, for as long as I've been reading his site. Garbage along the lines of the ZAP posts, where not only is the RV a 'done-deal', it's happening next Monday, when the banks open. Yep, this crud went from promising instant wealth next quarter, to next month, to next week, to next day! When these failed to materialise, ZAP gingerly side-steps the issue by simply failing to comment on the latest prediction failure. These are my recollections of reading through these ZAP posts from YEARS ago. I presume it's still the same old tosh that's being repeated today. One thing I'd bet money on though - each ZAP post is still begging for donations.
In perhaps the last year, Kauilepele had stopped posting about the Dinar RV entirely - until today that is!
Here, he reveals information that was new to me, but that I'd always suspected, namely, that he's a Dinar holder. Yep, he bought his back in 2010 and has been waiting for the gravy-train to roll on in ever since! Breaking his RV-silence is the result of him having seen this video, which I haven't watched, but presume is just another attempt at keeping the faithful (read, gulllible) distracted. A more tempered interpretation of a Dinar-RV if you will - "it's taken a while, but you'll still end up rich in the end, believe us..."
In his audio post, he even admits that he now believes that many of these Dinar-related sites/posts are complete "crap" - then back-peddles on this new-found realisation by falling for yet-more BS (new video) along the lines of, "you'll get your money when the 'arrests' are completed". Gawd...
But what really 'grinds-my-gears' about all of this is that people like Kauilepele set themselves up as being spiritually enlightened, yet see nothing immoral with trying to profit financially from the decimation of an entire country - never mind the infrastructure, there have been over 2,000,000 Iraqis killed since America's oil-grab. It is particularly obnoxious since Kauilepele is an American himself - as I suspect the vast majority of the 'Dinar-holders' out there are. You cannot claim to reject America's illegal occupation of Iraq while simultaneously trying to profit from it - at least if you have a spiritual bone in your body. There is not a jot of difference between this and being ok with getting rich from owning stock in an Arms manufacturer.
Yet Spiritual Neophytes like Kauilepele continue to spew meaningless drivel like "if it resonates with you..." in order to make more palatable, if only to themselves, positions which are completely untenable to anyone with any moral fibre.
And also remember, America's war in Vietnam left the Vietnamese Dong as worthless as the Iraqi Dinar, and it never recovered. But I guess realities like that don't "resonate" with Kauilepele and his ilk.
23 February 2018
Ebay/Paypal should get their act together...
It's been a while since I bitched & moaned about something, so I'm back, Ebay and Paypal being my latest peeves.
I ordered a sh1tload of stuff on Ebay during the November/December 2017 period, an act of utter stupidity in retrospect, as not only did every single order (10+) fail to arrive by its 'Due-date', about one-third to one-quarter still haven't shown up and probably never will. This incidentally was only the second time since joining Ebay in 2003 that orders have gone missing in the post.
In order to protect myself financially, I was therefore forced to look for refunds on all outstanding orders. This proved a chore in itself as some of the orders had over 15 items and Ebay forces the Buyer to go through the same tedious Refund request operation for each item. This must have taken an hour or so. What came as a surprise was that all of the Sellers promptly offered refunds without query or dispute. Which had me wondering just who ends up out of pocket when something like this happens - is it the Seller or are they insured against it, therefore not too bothered about losses like these?
Given that I see it as bad Karma to try profiting on someone elses misfortune, I set about repaying the Sellers that had given me Refunds, for orders that finally had begun to show up in dribs-and-drabs, a simple task one would imagine.
Not a bit of it! First off, Ebay does not seem to give a toss what happens after the initial transaction is complete (and they have collected their fees). Two months after an order is placed, Buyer-selectable menu-items for said order will disappear, irrespective of whether the order was received or not. The only usable option left being to "Contact Seller".
Without exception, when I have contacted a Seller about repaying Refunded money, I am instructed to re-order all of the items again (often a time-consuming process) and supply a note mentioning the Refund - that way, they will just pocket the money without sending another order out - fine by me! This I have done several times already. However this is far from ideal. For instance, one item I had bought 3 months earlier had cost $15.77. When it eventually arrived and I tried going the 'Refund-by-reordering' route, the cost had increased to $23.89 - there was no way I was going to fall for that! In this instance, I managed to pay him through Paypal - more on that lot later.
Currently, I have another order that has arrived for the amount of $28, made up of about 15 items that needs to be repaid. Given that I was curious as to how Ebay looked upon this repay-by-reordering of Refunds, I contacted Ebay, and was informed that the usual way of repaying Refunds is via Paypal - just call up the Refund transaction details, right-click on the Seller's email address and select 'Send Money' - makes sense. Interestingly, the Ebay Rep. that responded didn't comment on the 'repay-by-reordering' of Refunds, so I guess they're Ok with this.
Except that when I do this, there is no Seller's email address displayed! The bizarre thing is that when I contacted the Seller and told him about this, and that I needed him to send me his Paypal address in order to send him the Refunded money, he refused, insisting that I re-order all of the items again. This I told him I am not prepared to do.
In a final attempt to 'do the right thing', I have contacted Paypal and asked them to explain how I can send money to a Seller when Paypal themselves are failing to provide the required email address.
Right now, all of this has really left me with a sour taste as far as Ebay is concerned. First off, what the hell has been happening to my orders - orders have been late in the past, but individual orders not 15+ orders simultaneously! While the Guaranteed Refunds is great, the way Ebay sucks in cash, you expect them to also anticipate problems like this and provide a point-and-click method of returning refunded monies to Sellers.
It's also one of the reasons that I'm just after ordering €200 of stuff through Amazon.uk, not Ebay. Not only am I guaranteed to get my items an order of a magnitude faster, I am also covered financially.
Ebay, you'd better cop on or you'll go the way of the dodo.
Edit:
Wow, I'm dumb-founded at the utter incompetence of Paypal's Customer Support. My first email to them was a general query, excluding specifics, as I just wanted to know how to locate a vaild email address from a Paypal user-name. I was promptly answered, Paypal needed a 'Transaction ID' number.
Second email, I provided same, while briefly adding that I had contacted Ebay initially and they had informed me that I must return Refunds to Sellers via Paypal. Mistake - The mere mention of Ebay had the Paypal Rep. send me a two-liner telling me that Paypal was a separate company and that I sould contact them for help!!!
Third email, I point out that this is exclusively a Paypal issue - I simply am trying to pay someone through Paypal, need a valid email address to do so, and would they kindly please address the specific question I have been asking. I also include again the Transaction ID number of the Seller's Refund for completeness. I get a one-liner response this time, requesting the Transaction ID number.....
At this stage, I can only conclude that Paypal is fcuking with me! That, or Paypal's out-sourced Customer Support(!) - the names appear Indian - is pissed off with Paypal, so are fcuking with its customers. Either way, this is the worst Customer Support I have received from any company, ever! These guys seem completely incompetent.
To add to the irony, after the second email, Paypal contact me, asking me to rate their Customer Support. I must have spent 10min doing so, explaining my dissatisfaction with the service I had thus far received. Only to be treated to more of the same....
Fourth email, a one-liner listing the Transaction ID for a third time. Those clowns seem to have a 1sec attention span. Maybe I'm expecting too much with multi-line emails.
Edit1:
I'm just after receiving another order that was placed on December 17, 2017 - so yeah, a mite late in arriving!!!
After the fiasco with what Paypal laughingly calls its Customer Support - see post above - I am reduced to going the 'repay-by-reordering' route. Or so I thought.
I owe this latest Seller just $11.64, but when I try re-ordering the item from him, I am informed that the Seller refuses to sell to Buyers that fail to "meet his requirement" - yep, I've apparently been blacklisted! I cannot even contact the Seller via Ebay as I'm informed when I try, that the Seller cannot respond to my questions. So no way at all to pay back the Refunded money to this genius.
But this raises the quesion as to what rights a Buyer has when dealing with Ebay Sellers. Can a Seller just blacklist you on a whim like the Seller above has done to me? Ebay's money-back guarantee isn't all that it appears if a Seller that gives you a Refund for goods genuinely not received (in a timely manner in this instance) can then refuse all further business with the Buyer in question - namely, me!!! I'm sure that there's something called "Consumer Rights" that prohibits a retailer from taking this line of action - at least here in the EU.
I'd contacted Ebay about it but following my experience with their (Ebay & Paypal) farmed-out, abysmal Customer Support, I'm sure such a 'General Question' would be a waste of time.
It does highlight how disfunctional Ebay's business model can be, when something like this arises. Money-back guarantee aside, they have put zero thought into what happens when orders don't arrive in a timely manner. It would appear that they are content at having the Seller suffer the loss, and who really can do little else but offer a Refund, or risk Ebay's wrath!
I'm really, really disillusioned with Ebay.
I ordered a sh1tload of stuff on Ebay during the November/December 2017 period, an act of utter stupidity in retrospect, as not only did every single order (10+) fail to arrive by its 'Due-date', about one-third to one-quarter still haven't shown up and probably never will. This incidentally was only the second time since joining Ebay in 2003 that orders have gone missing in the post.
In order to protect myself financially, I was therefore forced to look for refunds on all outstanding orders. This proved a chore in itself as some of the orders had over 15 items and Ebay forces the Buyer to go through the same tedious Refund request operation for each item. This must have taken an hour or so. What came as a surprise was that all of the Sellers promptly offered refunds without query or dispute. Which had me wondering just who ends up out of pocket when something like this happens - is it the Seller or are they insured against it, therefore not too bothered about losses like these?
Given that I see it as bad Karma to try profiting on someone elses misfortune, I set about repaying the Sellers that had given me Refunds, for orders that finally had begun to show up in dribs-and-drabs, a simple task one would imagine.
Not a bit of it! First off, Ebay does not seem to give a toss what happens after the initial transaction is complete (and they have collected their fees). Two months after an order is placed, Buyer-selectable menu-items for said order will disappear, irrespective of whether the order was received or not. The only usable option left being to "Contact Seller".
Without exception, when I have contacted a Seller about repaying Refunded money, I am instructed to re-order all of the items again (often a time-consuming process) and supply a note mentioning the Refund - that way, they will just pocket the money without sending another order out - fine by me! This I have done several times already. However this is far from ideal. For instance, one item I had bought 3 months earlier had cost $15.77. When it eventually arrived and I tried going the 'Refund-by-reordering' route, the cost had increased to $23.89 - there was no way I was going to fall for that! In this instance, I managed to pay him through Paypal - more on that lot later.
Currently, I have another order that has arrived for the amount of $28, made up of about 15 items that needs to be repaid. Given that I was curious as to how Ebay looked upon this repay-by-reordering of Refunds, I contacted Ebay, and was informed that the usual way of repaying Refunds is via Paypal - just call up the Refund transaction details, right-click on the Seller's email address and select 'Send Money' - makes sense. Interestingly, the Ebay Rep. that responded didn't comment on the 'repay-by-reordering' of Refunds, so I guess they're Ok with this.
Except that when I do this, there is no Seller's email address displayed! The bizarre thing is that when I contacted the Seller and told him about this, and that I needed him to send me his Paypal address in order to send him the Refunded money, he refused, insisting that I re-order all of the items again. This I told him I am not prepared to do.
In a final attempt to 'do the right thing', I have contacted Paypal and asked them to explain how I can send money to a Seller when Paypal themselves are failing to provide the required email address.
Right now, all of this has really left me with a sour taste as far as Ebay is concerned. First off, what the hell has been happening to my orders - orders have been late in the past, but individual orders not 15+ orders simultaneously! While the Guaranteed Refunds is great, the way Ebay sucks in cash, you expect them to also anticipate problems like this and provide a point-and-click method of returning refunded monies to Sellers.
It's also one of the reasons that I'm just after ordering €200 of stuff through Amazon.uk, not Ebay. Not only am I guaranteed to get my items an order of a magnitude faster, I am also covered financially.
Ebay, you'd better cop on or you'll go the way of the dodo.
Edit:
Wow, I'm dumb-founded at the utter incompetence of Paypal's Customer Support. My first email to them was a general query, excluding specifics, as I just wanted to know how to locate a vaild email address from a Paypal user-name. I was promptly answered, Paypal needed a 'Transaction ID' number.
Second email, I provided same, while briefly adding that I had contacted Ebay initially and they had informed me that I must return Refunds to Sellers via Paypal. Mistake - The mere mention of Ebay had the Paypal Rep. send me a two-liner telling me that Paypal was a separate company and that I sould contact them for help!!!
Third email, I point out that this is exclusively a Paypal issue - I simply am trying to pay someone through Paypal, need a valid email address to do so, and would they kindly please address the specific question I have been asking. I also include again the Transaction ID number of the Seller's Refund for completeness. I get a one-liner response this time, requesting the Transaction ID number.....
At this stage, I can only conclude that Paypal is fcuking with me! That, or Paypal's out-sourced Customer Support(!) - the names appear Indian - is pissed off with Paypal, so are fcuking with its customers. Either way, this is the worst Customer Support I have received from any company, ever! These guys seem completely incompetent.
To add to the irony, after the second email, Paypal contact me, asking me to rate their Customer Support. I must have spent 10min doing so, explaining my dissatisfaction with the service I had thus far received. Only to be treated to more of the same....
Fourth email, a one-liner listing the Transaction ID for a third time. Those clowns seem to have a 1sec attention span. Maybe I'm expecting too much with multi-line emails.
Edit1:
I'm just after receiving another order that was placed on December 17, 2017 - so yeah, a mite late in arriving!!!
After the fiasco with what Paypal laughingly calls its Customer Support - see post above - I am reduced to going the 'repay-by-reordering' route. Or so I thought.
I owe this latest Seller just $11.64, but when I try re-ordering the item from him, I am informed that the Seller refuses to sell to Buyers that fail to "meet his requirement" - yep, I've apparently been blacklisted! I cannot even contact the Seller via Ebay as I'm informed when I try, that the Seller cannot respond to my questions. So no way at all to pay back the Refunded money to this genius.
But this raises the quesion as to what rights a Buyer has when dealing with Ebay Sellers. Can a Seller just blacklist you on a whim like the Seller above has done to me? Ebay's money-back guarantee isn't all that it appears if a Seller that gives you a Refund for goods genuinely not received (in a timely manner in this instance) can then refuse all further business with the Buyer in question - namely, me!!! I'm sure that there's something called "Consumer Rights" that prohibits a retailer from taking this line of action - at least here in the EU.
I'd contacted Ebay about it but following my experience with their (Ebay & Paypal) farmed-out, abysmal Customer Support, I'm sure such a 'General Question' would be a waste of time.
It does highlight how disfunctional Ebay's business model can be, when something like this arises. Money-back guarantee aside, they have put zero thought into what happens when orders don't arrive in a timely manner. It would appear that they are content at having the Seller suffer the loss, and who really can do little else but offer a Refund, or risk Ebay's wrath!
I'm really, really disillusioned with Ebay.
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