Thursday, May 13, 2010

What I Hate about eBay #1....

When eBay Users who have no knowledge of English send you "Question to Seller" inquiries on the original eBay board.
Do I go on eBay China, eBay Russia, eBay Spain, etc. and attempt to buy stuff without knowing a lick of those countries languages?  Nope.....


These people need to be told that ONLINE TRANSLATORS may NOT be your friend and they should really find a friend in Real Life who reads/writes/speaks just a tiny bit of English to proofread their literal translations before sending.

Case in Point--
A question I received this morning......
"Hello I´m interesting in your products of Lego. I live in Spain, I like know the prize of the spend send."

Luckily, this one is decipherable.
Some of the ones I get are A LOT worse and totally unintelligible!
OK....so receiving Questions in other languages, which I also sometimes get, is no prize either!LOL

Now why, if I WAS in my right mind, would I want to sell something to this person? 
Since we have a pretty big language barrier right off the bat(since I don't speak Spanish and he obviously doesn't speak English), if ANYTHING goes wrong with this transaction(another question, he misinterprets my answer, there is a Paypal payment issue, he doesn't comprehend some finer point of the whole eBay scene/rules, etc.), this potential transaction will result in a whole mess a' nothing but badness.
I foresee being pissed off, losing money and possibly losing my item or any combination of these three.

"Dear Non-English Speaking User,
Thank you for your inquiry.  While the products of Lego is no Prize, the spend send is $55US, especially if you live in Spain."

Now let me run this response through the English to Spanish online translator and then send it.  It will probably make as much sense to him as if I reply rationally to his question.  ;-)

Sluggy

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hey there! Thanks for leaving a comment.
All Anonymous commentors will be deleted.
Please include your name in your comment, or choose the 'Name' option and put your name or whatever you call yourself, in the box. Thank you.

Though I moderate it's partly to keep trolls at bay but also partly so that I read every comment. I don't often respond to comments so if you need me to answer you please write me at my email addy posted on my "About Me" page, linked on the side bar.