I am not certain I understand who is complaining--Vita mix for their perception of an infringement on their intellectual property, or 3Blenders for Vita Mix’s implicit legal threat over the Omniblend V. Nonetheless, I find Vitamix's claims spurious and unforgivably petulant. The Omniblend not only looks different from the Vita Mix machines, but also has a higher horsepower rating than most of the Vita Mixes, or is admittedly slower than the Vita Mix 3-hp machine. And Vitamix's threat to void consumers' warranties if consumers' Vita Mixes are enclosed in a non-Vita Mix sound enclosure is, at least to this consumer, insulting. I have been on the fence about the purchase of a Vita Mix or an Omniblend V, cost aside. Reading Vitamix's threats above, however, have sealed my decision. I won't do business with a corporation that threatens competition and consumers' financial interests. Unless Vita Mix has empirical evidence, confirmed by an independent laboratory, that housing their machine in another sound enclosure damages Vita Mix machines, that final part of the threat makes their company seem desperate to force consumers to do business with Vita Mix. Their loss--and I'll be forwarding this threat on to all my super-blender seeking friends, colleagues, students and family.
I'm not sure if this website will allow me to share an email I recently got from Ebay's Customer Service department. Before posting here on Complaintsboard, I once again tried reaching out to Ebay. There is no way I can find to chat with representatives since my review was censored and removed. Ebay seems to remove the CHAT function from your Ebay shopping page if they feel they've already spoken with you about an issue, sending you, instead, to an ocean of unhelpful "Help" pages.
Ebay's response (I have the email for confirmation) to me: "Thanks for contacting us about the feedback you've received. I understand how frustrating it is to get negative feedback when you feel it's undeserved. I know that you want it to be removed to maintain your good selling reviews." In their reply, they forwarded their censorship policy (https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-performance-policy/seller-performance-defect-removal-policy?id=4352) in which they assert:
"What kinds of defects can be removed, and how?
We automatically remove defects in certain situations, including where we find the buyer was at fault, if the problem was caused by an eBay site issue, or if there was an issue outside of your control like shipping service delays, or items being delayed because of an extreme weather event. If you've had a defect removed for any of the reasons mentioned above, please note it can take up to two days for your ratings to be adjusted."
So, an authentic buyer's review about an electronic product that failed on day 30 and a seller's refusal to answer questions about warranties constitutes a defect in which "the buyer was at fault." Ebay purposely removes legitimate buyer reviews to, by its own admission, "maintain your good selling reviews" instead of maintaining transparency and reliability in its review system. Shoppers beware.
Today we got an email response to a complaint we sent to Ebay's customer service. We told them we'd been asked to contact a certain department, but were disconnected via the Ebay agent (Chat) and couldn't find out how to contact that department. Subsequently, Ebay removed the chat feature from our Ebay Help pages. So we could only send them an email.
Not only did Ebay NOT help us with the issue, they mistakenly sent us (the buyers) the email intended for the seller. The email reassures the seller that Ebay has removed the buyer's comments to preserve the seller's positive ratings. However you feel about the Ebay buyers/sellers relationship, you ought to recognize that censoring negative reviews (that can be verified as accurate) is an obvious INvalidation of a review system. Besides having an anemic and untrustworthy review system, Ebay employs customer service agents who, at least some, won't respond to repeated attempts for help, purposely limit how you can contact them (removing the chat function & requiring you to email them and HOPE you get a reply), and may send an email reply TO THE WRONG PARTY/EMAIL ADDRESS.
Our family is done shopping on Ebay.
