refunds

[brucbern]

I offer free postage if three or more items are bought. Overnight someone has bought five items from me and paid for each item individually including five lots of postage. So now I have to refund the postage which is fine but my question is, will I get five seperate defects for the refunds? If so would it be better for me to refund the 5 lots of postage in one go & receive just the one defect. Hope someone can help me.

[lane-ends]

You can't do a part refund via returns system. If you just do a refund via paypal it shouldn't affect Ebay defects. It is only when a request is raised or a seller initiates a refund you get defect. You will however still get charged the fvf of the refunded $, you can't recover that I dont think

[brucbern]

Thank you for your help!

[digital*ghost]

I usually try to issue a single refund from one item if they've bought multiples, mostly because it makes it quicker / easier, and also because I worry a bit about PayPal flagging my account for too many refunds, so anywhere I can reduce the actual refund count, I will. If a single item value isn't high enough to have at least a couple of dollars spare after a full refund of excess postage, then I'll refund from two items. 

[putney32]

if they are 5 individual payments, you wont have paypal Seller protection if you send in one parcel.

[englishrosegardens]

I usually refund the postage on the items that have excess postage on them, so that I'm not refunding any of the purchase price.  I get a lot of buyers who pay for combined items before they receive an invoice.  I haven't had any problems with paypal or ebay because of the amount of refunds I do, but I always make sure I never refund from the purchase price.  If they make two separate payments and I have to refund more than the postage on one payment, I refund some from both payments.

I have a blurb in my description and on my shop page that effectively says the combined rates displayed in my shop only apply if they wait for an invoice for multiple items before they pay.  If they pay without waiting, I refund the excess postage minus the fees I've already paid on it.