I’ve ranted before about Microsoft and Adobe products.  Between Microsoft Word (and whatever the hell it does that makes text so unusable that you can’t cut-and-paste text out of Word into many other programs, including Microsoft’s own Entourage e-mail client for the Mac) and the unbelievably convoluted POS that is Adobe Acrobat, I’ve often said that the two companies are the surest sign of the existence of Satan.

Adobe gets extra points for removing support for right-to-left languages from the products it got when it bought Macromedia (Dreamweaver, Flash, etc.).  Mind you, they did this so that they could introduce it only in special “Middle East” versions of its software–which cost more, natch–that, as far as I can tell, can only be purchased in a single store in Dubai.  You sure as hell can’t buy them through the Adobe Web site.  Not living in Dubai, I have coworkers that have resorted to laying things out in PowerPoint.

However, after yesterday, I’ve got two new one candidates for evildom: eBay and its bastard offspring PayPal.

My friend Natalie went to London two weeks ago, and she borrowed the old Sony Ericsson T68i cell phone that I got second-hand specifically to use on overseas trips.  I have a generic “world SIM” card that’s not the cheapest thing to use, but works just about anywhere and is useful for business trips when I’m in a different city every day.  For longer stays in one place, I tend to get a short term pre-paid SIM card from the local mobile company, like Telcel in Mexico or Vodafone in Egypt, which gives me a local phone number of my own, and offers the advantage of letting me make phone calls home in idle moments while I’m sitting on a bus somewhere.  As an added bonus, the World SIM that I have carries a UK number, so for Natalie it was perfect since she was going to the UK.

When she got back, she broke the bad news to me: “Your charger’s dead,” she said.  She thought this was a bigger deal than it was.  For the record, this is actually the second charger I’ve owned for the phone.  The first one died an undignified death in Cairo when Ray tried to plug a 110 volt power strip into a voltage adapter and then plug it into the 220 volt wall socket and blew out the power to half of our floor of the hotel.  This necessitated purchasing a charger from the cell phone-and-shwarma kiosk down the street which meant that, uniquely, I had to use an adapter to plug it in when I was home in the US.

After three years of being wrapped up in my luggage or a drawer at home, the wires were fraying.  I had wrapped the cord with electrical tape, but Natalie reported that when she went to plug it in, the wires just sheared off.  “I tried to replace it,” she said, “but apparently the phone is too old and none of the shops we went to carried anything that will fit.”

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “This is why God invented eBay.”

Clearly, Satan was offended by this statement.

Yesterday morning, I hopped on eBay and discovered that one could, for the low low price of $4.50 (including shipping) purchase a replacement wall charger.  I said it wasn’t a big deal.  The trouble began when I clicked on “sign in” in order to start the purchase.

“Your password is incorrect,” eBay informed me.  I only have three passwords.  I use the Password Hash extension on Firefox that makes my life much easier because I can use the same passwords over and over.  When you push the F2 key before entering the password, it converts the password you type into a unique password based on an algorithm of the Web site address, the original password, and Oprah’s weight on a random date in the late 1990s.  Hence, if someone snares your password on Site A, it won’t work on Site B.

However, none of them were working on eBay.  After several go rounds, I admitted failure and clicked on “Forgot your password?”  It offered to e-mail me my password.  I clicked OK.  Nothing happened.  My e-mail inbox sat there and looked at me expectantly.

eBay then instructed me to enter my mother’s maiden name, my ZIP code, and my phone number.  I did so, and clicked “continue.”  It then made me fill out a captcha form, which I did, and then hit “continue.”

Your answers are incorrect, it told me.  Interestingly enough, it said that I had entered the right ZIP code, but that I had entered the wrong phone number … and also that my mother’s maiden name was incorrect.  I’m pretty damned sure that last one was a mistake on their part.

The other problem is that I registered with eBay several years ago, so I can’t actually remember which phone number I would have put down.  I put a few ones in, triple-checked the spelling of my mother’s maiden name and was eventually rewarded with a nasty message informing me that I had exceeded my attempts to verify my identity (but only after filling out the form and captcha … again.)

At this point, I decided that I needed to get to work and turned off my browser.

At home last night, I decided to try again.  Browsing eBay one more time, I discovered that for even less money–$2.50 including shipping–I could purchase a USB charger for the phone.  That’s even better — I’ve already got a hydra cord that simultaneously charges my iPod, GPS, and a couple of other things off of the USB.  I can plug the phone in at the same time and then I only have to bring one adapter for the wall socket.  Brilliant!

eBay was still unhappy with my attempts to login, so I just broke down and created a new login for myself.  That done, I clicked on “Buy it now.”  We’re in business!

The seller said that he would only accept PayPal.  I’ve used PayPal far more recently than I’ve used eBay … however, PayPal turned out to be even more problematic.  I logged in, and it immediately spat a message at me: “Your primary credit card has expired.  Please enter a new one.”  I did so, and noticed that the billing address listed was the address of the apartment where I lived for the two years of grad school and the first year of my job here in Austin (and where I haven’t lived since 2001).  I clicked to update it, and from then on, it was all downhill.

When I clicked on “Confirm purchase,” a screen came up with bright red letters.  “Your account access has been suspended.  You must verify your address to unsuspend this account.  Click here to continue.”  I did so.  “Please enter the telephone number associated with this address.”

I paused.  I don’t have a telephone number associated with this address.  We got rid of the landline nearly a year ago because we never used it.  I entered my cell phone number, which is what the credit card company has as my emergency number anyway.

“You cannot use a mobile number to verify your address,” it informed me.  “Please verify your address.”

At some point, I was given a phone number that I could call, but in my poking around trying to get the system to work, that screen vanished and I was never given the option again.  Fifteen minutes later, I was back staring at the same screen that informed me that my account had been suspended pending verification of my address.

Underneath the angry red screen there was a smaller link.  “Alternate methods.”  I clicked on this.  I was then given the option to confirm by mail.  OK, let’s do that.

It turns out that this option means that they’ll mail you a letter and you have to send it back along with a photocopy of some sort of official piece mail in which your address is confirmed.  Um, no.

The other option was to confirm my credit card.  OK!  Let’s do that.  In this instance, my credit card was charged $1.95 that would be refunded when I entered the correct four digit statement off of my credit card bill into the PayPal Web site.  I used my debit card and immediately logged on to my bank where, for once, the transaction was immediately visible.  I copied the four digits over, clicked enter, and, lo and behold, green text!

“Your address has been confirmed.”

At this point, I had to go back to eBay, re-log in, and initate the whole process all over again.  This time, it all went through.

I estimate that, all told, it took me 45 minutes to complete a transaction worth $2.50 so that I could get a lousy charger for my cell phone.

And that, children, is why eBay is the surest sign of evil in the universe.

Tags: adobe, eBay, evil, frustration, Internet, microsoft, PayPal