Thanks everyone who have responded, this has been helpful. Apologies if my message seemed ranty, but when you have $700 thats sort of just no where and no one replies to you its not that ideal!

In that instance I would hope that TradeMe reaches out to me first and doesn't just send the money back!  

I totally agree, we use the same type of technology in my role and while it requires intervention, the only thing we have to see is if the identification verification is a 'pass' or whether more information is required (which is rare unless someone lives in a shared living arrangement etc). It takes about 1 minute to check that verification, this could easily be set up to be automated if they have the systems in place. I think in relation to the way trademe customer care operates, being that I am a manager in this field and have a team myself, the website SLA's need to either be dynamic, sh...