Dear eBay, here is an example of how NOT to manage your accounts and customers:
I just spent 50 minutes on the phone with Ebay customer support. All I wanted to do was update the phone number on my account, as I was about to make a purchase. I don't use eBay much, once every couple of years, but I've been registered since 1999.
The web site let me log in, let me update my shipping address, but gave me cryptic errors about confirming my registration when trying to update my phone number, which is odd since I've been a confirmed and registered customer for 12 years. When I tried to have the confirmation email re-sent, I received a generic error message that looked like technical difficulties on their end, not that anything was wrong with my specific account.
I called tech support, and the first guy took 20 minutes to determine that my account appeared to be marked for pending deletion, but had to transfer me to another department to get my deletion cancelled and my account reinstated. Fine, I haven't used it in a while, guess you can delete my account...I'm sure that 10KB that my profile takes up is really straining your disk usage...
The second support department took 5 minutes to tell me that my account is already deleted, and there's nothing they can do. Um...I can still log in? That doesn't seem very "deleted" to me. Oh, and you say you sent me an email notification back in May that said you were going to delete my account unless I logged in within 30 days? Yeah, I'm absolutely certain that didn't look like spam at all, and made it past Google's spam filters into my inbox. Second tier could tell I was a little miffed; they were quick to end the call.
Frustrated, I searched the eBay account closing information on the support section of their site. It says I have 180 days from pending-delete to full-on deletion. Okay, May + 180...I should still be OK?...
I called customer support back. This time, an efficient gent took my call, who confirmed my pending-delete status quickly, and tried to fix it. He was not able to, stating insufficient access (and I believe him, he tried repeatedly for 10 minutes). He bumped me to Tier 2. This tier 2 person confirmed my account status. However, instead of telling me that she couldn't help me, she took 10 minutes and actually fixed my account, which the initial tier 2 person said couldn't be done. Hmm...
Thank you competent tier 2 support person Nina. No thanks to the previous incompetent or lazy person. And no thanks to eBay for having misguided policies regarding account preservation. Your customer support image is everything; don't tarnish it.