My letter to Auctiva today

For those of you who haven't been following the saga of the eBay auction listing site Auctiva and their infection by malware last week, see ColderIce's blog here for lots more info:

http://3rdpoblogs.com/colderice/

In summary, the listing site was infected, and sellers were affected because when a potential buyer clicked on a picture in a listing, they got the dreaded Red Screen of Death telling them that Auctiva was a Bad Site and had Big Problems (thanks Google, appreciate that a lot!) And some people were infected by trojans and other viruses! So now some buyers are saying they simply won't buy from sellers who use Auctiva, ever.

Great. I have over 750 items listed in my store/auctions, and the thought of moving them all to another venue (like InkFrog or Vendio) is daunting, to say the least. It will mean closing and relisting each item, and include additional listing fees, not to mention a horrid amount of time to implement (as if I don't already spend my life doing this stuff!)

It would seem to me that if the Powers That Be at Auctiva would just step up and admit they handled the situation poorly and apologize, a lot of the people who are angry with them would feel vindicated and somewhat placated. Not all, of course, but at least some.

So I sent this email to the folks at Customer Support today, opening a case file to do so. I'll keep you all posted as to whether I hear back from them at all. Here's the text of my email:

I am incredibly distressed by the problems you have been having over the past week. I have heard buyers state that they will NEVER buy from a seller who uses your service. I like your service, and I have no desire to have to move my 750+ store and auction listings to some other service.

But you NEED to get out there and apologize! Your lack of accepting responsibility for these problems is giving you a terrible credibility issue with eBay buyers, and that's hurting us sellers. I would like to stay with you. But you have to step up to the plate and acknowledge that you made some mistakes. I think once you do that people won't be so angry. They're mad now because you continued to act like everything was ok (telling people to ignore the red screen of death and log in anyway was a big mistake.)

I would like to hear your thoughts on what you are going to do to address the lack of trust your actions have created among the buyers, and tell me how you plan to regain that trust, so that I as a seller will want to stay with you.

Please do not send me a canned response, a real answer from a real person in authority is going to be very important here, if you wish to retain me.

Thank you for your consideration and response.

Laura Haggarty