eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

momosworld
Community Member
So we get the email to attend eBay live and why its sooo good for Canadians. The one & only thing that captured my attention was the "Special Hotel Rate" they had for all Canadian ONLY. This made me jump on the offer & I decided to go to eBay live this year.

I looked again at the offer & noticed this:
This rate is only available until May 30th, so act fast!

I just received this email today. May 31!

I then went to check the rates anyway's & received this message:
We're sorry; there are no rooms available that meet your criteria at this hotel.

So I just wanted to say! Good job eBay, Keep up the great work.

Moez.


My mommy says i'm cool

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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

jakeeangel
Community Member
OMG no way!!!

How flipping stupid is that!! I did get the email today too but I never checked or fully read it for the dates. Forgive me for laughing but that's just too dang funny!!

They were really dragging their feet on this one. They'd been promising special events and rates for weeks now and they release it a day after it expires??? That's just too funny. *sigh* I talked to a couple of Pinks at the eBay U in Toronto. Stay tuned was the answer I got. The second coming of Christ is gonna happen too. We just don't know when.

I sure hope you noticed it before you bought admission to the conference!

That's such an embarassment. You should post it on the open boards for a bit of fun. ;)



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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

treasure-pot
Community Member
Y'know Moez, if it only happened once in a while I'd say that it was just a mistake or somebody dropped the ball. But we all know that it's not the case.

I don't know who is responsible for doing the promotional emailing for eBay.ca but they should either be fired or restricted from using a computer on behalf of the company. This type of fiasco happens with such shocking frequency that it either is done on purpose or is proof positive that eBay.ca is staffed with incompetents.

How many times have promotion emails been received by Canadian sellers with only a couple of hours remaining in the promotion? How many times have promotions been run with no emails sent? How many times have announcements been botched and, consequently, events rescheduled? Don't even get me started on JB's miserable Canadian seller profitability initiatives. Boy, much like election promises, those initiatives have just vapourized.

I challenge Izzy (or any other pink who happens to get lost and find themselves on this board by mistake) to explain the rational behind this ridiculously late offer. Why wasn't the community made aware of a specially negotiated price for hotel rooms weeks ago? Did they not know about eBay Live!?

I made my hotel reservations two days after eBay Live! opened for booking. A fat lot of good eBay.ca's offer of specially negotiated room rates are at the end of May.

Shame on eBay.ca

Bill treasure-pot


Bill


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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

Geez Bill. Why don't you just come right out and say how you feel? 🙂
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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

momosworld
Community Member
Here's another stupid important fact missed in the email:

Yes! All Canadians are invited to attend the eBay Canada breakfast hosted by the eBay Canada staff...along with a special guest!

Ok...so when is this Canada Breakfast? Its not like they are going to announce at eBay live on loud mics that the breakfast is on a certain day??

Yes Bill, someone should be fired for that and leaving it until the 31st of may, basically 2 weeks before Live is just ridiculous.

Anyhow, I'm debating now whether it will even be fun this time, I don't particularly like Boston, no real attractions.

:-) Moez.


My mommy says i'm cool

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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

whoscloset
Community Member
I haven't looked as I'm not planning to attend...but the Canadian Breakfast may be listed on the itinerary on the official Live 2007 page. I know that was the case a few years back in San Jose.

Monique

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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

I'm not going but was invited. I even got an email saying that hubby and I would have a discount because we attended eBay U. It would be nice though if they gave new PS's some information such as the itinerary you mention Monique.

And if they sent out outdated hotel discount information to all of us!! :^O
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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

izzy@ebay.com
Community Member
Hello everybody:

I hear your concern loud and clear: we were late in communicating the hotel discount and other eBay Live! initiatives. The primary reason is that the attendance level from Canada was a bit lower than we anticipated a couple of weeks after registration opened. We posted a thread on the Canada Town Square board asking you what was preventing you from attending eBay Live! this year, and the overall cost of the trip was a main issue. So, we've decided to put an eBay Live! package for Canadians, which was undeniably later than we anticipated.

If you've registered to eBay Live!, you should have received a personal email from me regarding what's happening for Canadians this year. Here's a summary:

Canadian Breakfast with Mike Linton and Jordan Banks

This year we are planning a breakfast for all Canadian delegates. The breakfast will be held at the Hilton Hotel, less than 5km/3miles from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) where all the eBay Live! excitement is happening.

When:
Friday, June 15th 2007 from 7:30am to 9:30am ET.

Where:
Hilton Boston Back Bay (look for eBay’s Canadian Breakfast sign at the entrance)
40 Dalton Street
Boston
www.bostonbackbay.hilton.com

What:
Boston breakfast buffet…and Mike Linton! During breakfast, we will introduce eBay’s Senior Vice President of Marketplaces and Adjacencies, Mike Linton, who manages Canada, as well as many other eBay businesses such as Motors, Rent.com, Half.com, etc. Mike will give you a brief overview of his past experience (CMO of Best Buy!) as well as his vision for Canada. Don’t miss Jordan Banks’s Town Hall as well! Jordan will be at breakfast to hear what’s on your mind and get to know you.


Special Gift Bags

We have special gift bags for Canadians attending eBay Live! Come pick up yours at the breakfast. Gift bags include a restaurant voucher, free admission to the Skywalk Observatory, a discount Preferred Shopper card for the Shops at Prudential Center, a $25 Visa gift card, and more!


Bill Cobb

Last but not least, Bill Cobb will be stopping by the eBay Canada booth on Friday June 15th from 4:00pm to 4:20pm. Don’t miss the opportunity to ask him the tough questions in person!

I received many RSVPs already, and I'm waiting for some more!

Also...please note that the discount at the DoubleTree hotel was extended to June 5th. Book now if yo haven't done so already.

Looking forward to seeing you in Boston!
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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

treasure-pot
Community Member
Isabel;

eBay.ca needs to start getting much more pro-active rather than re-active. The notion that "we were not getting people registering so we are trying to make it attractive - albeit far too late" seems to be extremely backward. If Canadians wait a little longer will eBay.ca sweeten the pot even more by offering other discounts to already ended events?

eBay offers discounted registration to eBay Live! from the day registration opens making certain that offers are in place to encourage people to register early. Did eBay.ca really need CTS'ers to tell them that Boston was an expensive city in which to book hotels? Who does your homework for you anyway?

Maybe it's time JB brings back the Voices program and starts listening to Canadian eBay members. If staffers are devoid of ideas, members certainly are not. Why the late notice on the breakfast? It certainly appears to be almost an afterthought. In fact CTS frequenters even set about to organize their own event because .ca seemed unwilling to take the initiative and had remained so quiet about planned events. It's probably a good thing they did or eBay staffers wouldn't have anything to do on the Friday evening.

Frankly, eBay.ca should be ashamed of themselves for the lackluster effort put into communications with Canadians regarding eBay Live!.

Bill treasure-pot


Bill


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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

facestation
Community Member
This is the first year I probably will not be attending. I do not like how I have been treated by eBay this year. Once again, too many employees & not enough to do so they start making stupid jobs up. i.e.: excessive s/h (only for cellphone accessory sellers) now the newly non-performance crap.

Moez
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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

jakeeangel
Community Member
Hey Bill,

You wanna talk about Voices and being ashamed? Get this! Every year all Voices.com members are given a code for free admission to eBay Live. I'm a Canadian Voices member. Wish I was a US one but that's another story..... We also got a code for free eBay Live for the last few years. This year they said NO.

Why the heck is that? There's only a handful of us so it's not going to cost them an arm and a leg. And those that would actually go to Live was even less!! They do it for all the US Voices AND they are giving free admission to all those that went to eBay University in Toronto. Talk about a slap in the face geeze! Just plain stupid if you ask me!

Last year I basically had to guilt them into it. The Voices board has been abandoned by .ca. I was on the eBay Live board on .com and asked one of the Pinks there about a code. I lamented that no Pinks communicate with us on our Voices board and asked for help and the code. He emailed me that he'd gotten in contact with the Canadian Voices Pink and that a code would be forthcoming. It was and it was fast but only because I asked a .com Pink and he kicked them in the butt. Now that's really bad! :(



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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

I seem to recall that they would give a credit to those that attended eBay University only for the amount paid to attend that event. I don't think they said we would get in free. I looked for the email they sent me but can't find it. I could be wrong but that is the way I understood it.

Why would they expect Canadians to attend that event when they give such blatant preferential treatment to Americans?
That really stinks!!
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eBay Live Email ~ Thanks for nothing once again eBay!

jakeeangel
Community Member
No that's not it. You get free admission because you attended eBay University. They gave you a code in the email to enter when registering and you owed zero which I'm not posting here for obvious reasons.

"Thank you for attending eBay University in Toronto. As announced, your attendance automatically enables you to receive FREE admission to eBay Live! June 14-16 in Boston."

It's a US convention so it will address their largest audience, US eBay members but there are members from all around the world who attend. It's a great event. I enjoy it but won't be going this year. I also wouldn't say they get preferential treatment either.

eBay is a US company. They're holding their annual convention for it's largest group of members, Americans in the US. Of course they're going to cater the majority of information to them. It only makes sense but they certainly don't exclude others from coming. All eBay members from all over the world are welcome and encouraged to come. Don't most members, especially Canadians, sell to Americans anyways?

I can't remember the number of countries that were represented there last year but there were quite a few. I remember Italy, Germany, UK, Australia, India, Canada (of course) and others. I have the keynote speach on my iPod but I'd have to listen to it again to hear the number. I know they had members from every state there and I believe they said 22 countries but don't quote me on that. I'd have to listen to the speach again to be exact.



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