My Experience With eBay's Authentication Service

[Buythatcard]

Back in February, I sold a raw Ted Williams 1939 Play Ball card on eBay for over $1,700. The card was in Excellent condition with no creases or any surface flaws. There was one issue. The card was slightly trimmed. In my description of the card, I said that the card appears to be trimmed, cards displays beautifully. Overall condition of card is Excellent. I have sold over 1,000 1939 Play Balls over the years and felt that this card was authentic.
Buyer paid for the card and eBay sent card off to their authenticator. This was my first card to be sent off to be authenticated by eBay.
A week later, I received message from eBay saying that card was rejected. They gave no reason. I read that if they reject your card, it means that it’s not authentic. I immediately appealed the decision and asked them why they rejected the card.
Two weeks later, they responded by saying that they could not reach me because my phone number on my account was invalid. I have been using the same phone number for 19 years so that made no sense to me.
In the meantime, I explained to my buyer what has happened. He said that he was still interested in the card and asked whether he could send it off to SGC for their opinion. I told them that I have no problem with that and offered a full refund if SGC thought the card was not authentic. I told him that I would send the card off to him when eBay returns it to me.
When eBay finally returned the card, there was a little note included saying that once I update the description of the card, I can relist it. I said what are they talking about? First they reject it without giving me a reason and now they say I can relist it if I fix the description. Fix what?
So, at this point I sent the card off to my buyer who now bought the card from me outside of eBay. He sent it off to SGC. It came back from SGC as Authentic but Altered due to the trimming.
He was happy with the decision and kept the card.
I was pissed off with eBay for their poor responses and with the authenticator’s poor job.
Is this what we have to look forward to with eBay’s sucky authentication service?