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Updates Dec 2009: at last, there's an English language version of eBay in Hong Kong; currently says in Beta.
May 2014: this page no longer exists; and there's no apparent link to any English page on HK ebay site [but there are English words like Electronics, Cars, Fashion in the page title used in very top of browser…]
So what follows should have been consigned to history, it seems. – and yet (editing June 2011), more reports of eBay in Hong Kong being unusable in English.
Though I've long heard of eBay, been frustrated trying to register on it (as has my wife) – since the Hong Kong site is only in Chinese. A friend told me that even if try registering with overseas address, can revert to Chinese language site if give a Hong Kong credit card. He joined by browsing to sign-up page, and having an English eBay site's sign-up page open at same time – so could know which info to enter where. Seems daft, especially as English is an official language here. Surely could at least allow people to sign up in English, even if then use English language sites from overseas for buying/selling.
Here's a little correspondence I've had with eBay here:
Quote:Hi: I live in Hong Kong; interested in registering with eBay, but site here only in Chinese, which I can't read. Do I just say I'm in the UK (say) – or my Indonesian wife should perhaps say she's in Indonesia? Or are non-Chinese reading Hong Kong residents just utterly unwelcome?Quote:Hello, Thank you for taking the time to write to eBay. My name is Lan. I am happy to assist you further. I understand that you would like to view eBay HK in English. However, I am sorry that eBay HK is currently encoded in traditional Chinese only. Please note that there is no feature available by which you can change the language of an site.We have passed your suggestion to our product development department for further review. We will look into introducing an English interface on eBay HK. We are committed to making our users' experiences at eBay pleasant and rewarding. Your comments and proposals is appreciated.
If you can't read any Chinese and really want to register in eBay US, the only way to avoid being directed to eBay HK site is to use a US address temporarily. For example: City: Albany State / Province: New York Zip / Postal code: 12201 Country or Region: United States Primary telephone: (212) ***-**** Once your registration is confirmed, you should change the registration information to your true Hong Kong's immediately, including registration country, city, address, phone number, etc., by following the steps outlined for you below:
1. Go to eBay US site, and click on the "site map" link at the top of most eBay pages. 2. Click on the "Change Registration Information" link located under the bolded heading of "My Account". You may be asked to sign in. 3. Once you are on the "Change registration information" page, please update anything that needs to be changed and click on the "change registration information" button. 4. On the next page, you will be asked to review the information you just changed to be sure it is correct. If the information is correct, please click the "Submit" button to accept your changes. I hope you've found this email helpful. Thank you for using eBay! Regards, Lan eBay Hong Kong Customer Support
Seems rather a kerfuffle; note the ironic "Thank you for using eBay!" – when I'm complaining about being unable to use eBay!
Quote:Hi Lan: Thanks for this message. I rather think eBay worldwide could use some options for people who are resident in places where they can't read/write native language – not whole websites, but just help with registration in non-local language, providing that language is supported by eBay. Thanks for the tip re registering as US user, then changing details; I may do this.Spoke of this last night with a friend who uses eBay: he'd solved by having HK and US registration fields on pages side-by-side: could fill in info by reading what was wanted on US page. Seen a few forum posts about this issue with eBay HK, so might be more than a handful of people interested. As I say, not worth a full website translation, but perhaps meriting a little help. (Yahoo likewise seems only focused on Chinese reading members in HK; and like eBay, no matter English is an official language here.) All the best, Martin
Quote:Hello, Thank you for writing back to eBay. Your advice on our HK site is appreciated highly and I have submit your advice to relevant department for further review. Thank you again for your precious advice! Regards, Lan eBay Hong Kong Customer Support– my advice clearly so "precious" it resulted in no action whatsoever. Googling, can see that others too have encountered the same problems.
Haven’t checked eBay here for ages; but just seen there’s now an English Beta page. I see from this there’s a sign up page, with Chinese and English instructions; and note on the right saying:
Quote:Thank you for registering on
the new eBay.com.hk English beta site. Additional site functionality & communication will launch in the coming months.– so at least it’s possible to sign up, maybe start doing things!
You can reach this via English link near top right of:
eBay
I had EXACTLY the same experience and email correspondence with ebay HK. So I registered “as if” I was in the US, but when I visit ebay uk it seems to work OK in English.
Kristian
I just tried to register, found an English page for that, but now get everything else in Chinese
and even my Chinese wife has trouble understanding.
Does not matter where I go in ebay, any reply is on a Chinese Page.
Considering English IS a language for HK and IS the unofficial Internet language
and IS the worlds second language I think that Ebay needs to get it act together
and allow the use of ANY language . I live in Beijing, and have less trouble with language
than I do with Ebay HK
Steve GreenhalghFor what it’s worth – April 2011 and ebay HK is still in Bets and pretty much unusable. You can find things there but if you try to register for an account the signup page is in Chinese with an translations for some items in a side panel. If you manage to sign up the confirmation email is in English – but the confirmation pages and help pages etc are all chinese with no attempt at translation.
It seems the English market in HK is too small for Ebay to bother about
Yes is absolutley true, I have been requested to proof my residential address only in Chinese language, and when I sent complaining emails to ask for translation in english, they told me to send them an email with the Jpeg format of the page that I wanted to translete. So I did, and they replied to me the t they couldn’t open the attachement. Then I complained anout that and they replied that Hoing KOng is in china and many people in HK speak Chinese, and I can ask sokeome to translate the document for me. I think that It’s offensive and ridiculous that Ebay ( an English speaking and Not Chinese company) treat the customers like that.
All the replies were sent with a template introduction like ” thank you for your precious help” and ass licking things like that for 3 or 4 lines, then the real types words were only “ask your friend to translate the page” and ” Hong Kong is in China”.Unbelievable.
Oh dear, seems like crap customer "service" – an employee with little or no interest in ebay or people wanting to work with it.
Yet, having quick look just now, I see a bilingual – Chinese and English – sign up page at http://pages.ebay.com.hk/eng/registration/index.html
– however, see next post saying the subsequent registration pages are Chinese only
– I was checking using Chrome browser, as maybe could use google translate to get some kind of translation. Maybe don't need to do so, tho, if the bilingual page works.
Hi, just found this site after spending hours online trying to
1. register with Ebay HK. I tried the same about 5 years ago unsuccessfully. I tried it again in June 2011 and the site is still CRAP! I cannot believe or understand why an ENGLISH speaking company (Ebay.com)is unable to provide an interface for Chinese speakers AND alternatively one for English speakers! Ebay HK doesn't even have to hire a translator! Just use the templates from Ebay.com. SIMPLE!
A 10-year old could develop a more efficient website than this! UNBELIEVABLE! After contacting "live" support (apparently from China and only available between narrow office hours!)without them providing any help ("Sorry, but Ebay HK is "currently" only available in Chinese!)
I tried to register using Goggle translate. Even though the first registration page is in Chinese and some English all subsequent pages are in Chinese only! Unfortunately, Google translate didn't help much because when entering credit card information certain data cannot be copied and pasted into Google translate!
2. I live in HK,Alibaba is available in English, Aliexpress is available in English,PayPal HK (an ebayHK company!)is available in English, I can also open a ProStores account (also an ebay company) BUT I CANNOT REGISTER WITH EBAY HK! RIDICULOUS!
3. I also tried to find other contact information for Ebay HK, i.e. tel.no or mailing address… because I wanted to visit their office and speak to the management (or the lack of it!) NOTHING!!! Seem they are hiding from angry customers or people like myself who ares simply frustrated by such INCOMPETENCE!
Well I too am in a similar situation. I am in Beijing and I want an ebay account based here.
I took the above advice and registered a UK account and then changed the address to my Chinese address. I then got a message with a slimy message saying congratulations on my move and then some link to companies who could help me ship my belongings.
I have just tried to sell an item – I can get all the way through the listing process until the final step when I try to make the item live.
I then get a message saying that my ID has to be confirmed. To do this I have 3 options
Link your verified PayPal account to your eBay account
If you’re already PayPal Verified, just link your PayPal account to your eBay account.Provide your bank account information (recommended)
Use our quick, easy process to securely provide us with your bank account information.Provide your debit or credit card information
PayPal will ask you to provide debit or credit card information and follow a few steps to become PayPal Verified.The first would make the most sense – I have a verified paypal account. However when I choose that option it takes me to a Chinese PayPal page, using Chrome I translated it and selected the necessary options to link the accounts. Upon going back to ebay and trying to list the item I get the same “Id confirmation” message… and so the loop begins again.
The second option is the one where PayPal deposits 2 amounts into your account for verification – but this usually takes days.
The third option takes me to another ebay page that tells me to go to PayPal and to Click the Get Verified link under the heading Activate Account.
I dont have that heading. But trawling through paypal help pages I found how to link my accounts together. Upon linking them I returned to ebay. I tried to list an item, guess what? Same message
“Attention:
To keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell, we ask our members to confirm their identity. This doesn’t mean there’s a problem, but before you can continue, we need a little more information from you.We’ll ask you to confirm your identity by linking your account to PayPal or by providing us with additional information.
Please click the button at the bottom of the page to continue.
So – here I am several hours later. As requested I have linked my ebay account to my paypal account not once but three times. Twice through ebay and once through PayPal and still no progress.
I am going to go and try to link my bank account – although I am not holding my breath for success because it is a Chinese account… oh well, here goes.
Really dont know why we bother. Everytime Ebay gets close to being good, they get their computer nerds to screw it up in any case. I long for the day there is a viable alternative to feebay.
My partner this morning wanted me to setup a buying account on ebay Hong Kong. Yep, I’ve had a good crack at it too… no luck after 1 hour playing around with all the top translators. Ended up here after various searches on metacrawler for any leads. (I 1st thought it would be easy to log onto ebay hong kong). Either way, I will be persistant… theres got to be a way around all this. Ebay has that many loop holes in it!
I’ll keep ya posted if I make any advances. – Chriso.This is truly pissing me off. I can’t understand anything. i got it to switch to english once but now its just does it all the god damn time. ebay needs to get its shit together.
where is the hong kong physical address in Sheung wan hong kong?
i called them to complain about my account being restricted.
crappy customer serviceIn a strange twist, ebay would prefer that you use the phone as you can’t easily copy the conversation and share the stupidity of ebay online.
Here is how to write them an e-mail:
http://hank-terrebrood.blogspot.hk/2014/01/getting-in-touch-with-ebay-via-e-mail.html
I was a happy ebay surfer until I tried to buy something and entered my hong kong address and landline telephone which took me to the chinese pages. As an additional insult there was a message saying that a Pin number had been sent to my telephone number. There had been no prior warning to enter a number which can receive text messages . Any attempt to access ebay from that point took me back to the PIN request page again. The only thing customer service was eventually helpful with after a call to the loosely defined english help line and multiple emails was closing the account. They also thanked me for the idea to have english pages but reconfirmed no plans for this. Eventually I found the same item on english ali express site. My money will now go to a china based vendor instead of the one from hong kong .
I’ll keep ya posted if I make any advances. – Chriso.- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.