Ebay gave full refund to buyer and didn't charge me

[beakychew]

The short story:

Ebay decided to award a refund to one of my buyers, and notified me that i wouldn't have to pay it

The long story:

--Buyer requests a refund

--I reply, saying I will refund upon return. Would they like to purchase their own satchel and be refunded, or should I send one (ClickAndSend was out of action at the time)

--No reply

--one week later I post them an addressed prepaid satchel, and send a message stating same.

--No reply and no return

--another couple of weeks pass, ebay asks whether the return has been received. And would I like them to intervene

--I ask for Ebay to intervene and list the history

--within minutes, Ebay approves the refund request and tells me they will cover it

This was the message I received from Ebay:

"eBay opened a case because of an issue with an item purchased from you. We reviewed the case and have decided to issue the buyer a refund of AU $xxxxx [full refund] without any impact to you.
This case is now closed. You're not required to reimburse the buyer or eBay, and this case won't be counted in your seller performance evaluation."

Has anyone else had this experience?

[*tippy*toes*]

Never EVER ask eBay to step in and help. The instant you do, they close the dispute in favour of the buyer, regardless of whatever the issue is and whether you're in the right. The only difference this time is, eBay gave them the refund, you didn't. Now they have the item and a refund and know how easy it is to shoplift. I'd be surprised if they don't try it on someone else now because of how easy it was.

Normally they will refund the buyer from your money and tell them they can keep the item. EBay encourages shoplifting on their site. They have no right to tell a buyer they can keep the item after refunding. Only the seller should be able to make that call.

Make sure you add this buyer to your blocked list so they don't shoplift from you again.

[jellybirddesigns]

In all honesty, half the time the buyer requests a refund, but never sends the item back - they usually hope you'll just refund their money so as not to risk a neg.

I would never send a pre-paid satchel either - now you've incurred an additional loss unfortunately.

I certainly wouldn't ask Ebay to intervene - it usually ends up in the buyers favour.

[beakychew]

My impression was, they were going to refund the buyer regardless of what i said or did.

My asking Ebay to intervene, at least i didn't have to fork out for the refund. 

I have added them to my blocked list.

There should be a list of dodgy buyers that all sellers can share!

[beakychew]

I agree about the pp satchel. Would you require that they post and then be refunded? I would have given a C&S label but their system was down for a few days at the time.

So in my sistuation what would you have done--just give the refund at the outset?

[davewil1964]

i certainly wouldn't have sent them a satchel when they had never responded to the initial peace offering.

i would not have refunded them either.

As has been said, you have shown them how easy it is to shoplift. They now have their money back, the item, AND a satchel that with 5c worth of whiteout is usable by them

[jellybirddesigns]

Beakychew - it's a hard situation to gauge, TBH.

Generally, when you go through the return process there are messages from Ebay that encourage you to communicate with the buyer and this is done because they want you and the buyer to work out the return postage between you. I believe that once both parties have agreed on a price, the seller will usually send that money through separately to the buyer (via PP), or they will send a label. Again, even if a buyer "agreed" on the return postage price, doesn't mean that they will actually send the item - again I would maybe say that all postage should be refunded after the item is back in your hands. I NEVER use the label option, but that's just me.

Overall, it's just a really stupid, stupid system, IMHO.

I never just give a refund for the sake of it and neither should you feel that you are backed into a corner so that you have to either. These boards are a great resource for these types of situations. We all handle the return process a little differently and people will give you the benefit of their experience so that you can make a better judgement call for YOUR situation.

What you maybe could have done was to say to the buyer something along these lines:

Dear buyer....I see you have initiated a return for the item. I am happy to accept the return and will refund you your original cost plus the return postage cost of XXX upon receipt of the item.

And then you just sit and wait....if and when it turns up on your doorstep, you can do the refund. After X amount of days the return will time out if no item has been received (30 days I think?).

[4476.iveco]

Yes I recently had similar, except the buyer actually wanted an exchange of size, although the buyer requested a return.  We did the exchange with buyer paying the postage & I asked the buyer to close the request...no response after a few messages so I contacted Ebay just incase they did not refund the buyer via my account. 

I received a message from Ebay saying: We reviewed the case and have decided to issue the buyer a refund without any impact to you.
This case is now closed. You're not required to reimburse the buyer or eBay, and this case won't be counted in your seller performance evaluation."

Lucky buyer

[beakychew]

Thanks CC for your considered response. I didn't realise I could just wait for the return--that's great!

I started out accepting all returns and complaints as i was concerned about feedback, and also had read that Ebay sides with buyers in most cases.

And I have had a buyer give negative feedback (just once) and it did affect sales. (That was a case where the buyer didn't even ask for a refund, so nothing I could do.)

Now I'm more circumspect about placating buyers, since I can see that it just leads to high expectations of all sellers. And some buyers are just scammers and should not be encouraged!

[lemony_gem_toys]

Its because its all automated.   I had one return case in which i sent the wrong item.  I returned and and sent the right one to the buyer.  All good no issues.  The case was still open though for number of weeks so I asked ebay to close it.  Instead they refunded the buyer the full amount!! LOL....