Refund that isn't a refund at all

[letscleanupmycupboards]

Bitter taste left when you are awarded a full refund but because the purchase was 2 months ago and the USD-AUD rates differ.

Ok so it's only $7 less but on a $120 refund that's significant but it's a matter of principle too. eBay says that's the way it is. So PayPal wins more of our hard earned money. This should be protected so a $100 purchase equals a $100 refund.

[letscleanupmycupboards]

It would be ok to get the usd refund if it went into your PayPal and you could sit on it until the rate was better. Or use it to make usd purchases. However it goes directly back onto your card that the purchase was made on.

You're right. It would not be an issue if it had been the other way around. The way my eBay luck has been lately that would not happen. What if the item had been a $2000 item and I'd been shorted by hundreds? Really should be protected for as long as you are able to get a refund from eBay.

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
It would be ok to get the usd refund if it went into your PayPal and you could sit on it until the rate was better. Or use it to make usd purchases. However it goes directly back onto your card that the purchase was made on.

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You can do that manually.

You have to add funds to your PayPal account, ensure you are able to hold a secondary balance in USD (it's the default for most PP accounts), then convert your AUD to USD before purchasing.

Theoretically, if you pay in USD, you get refunded in USD. The currency conversion fee is a fraction of a percentage cheaper than allowing PP to do it at the point of purchase, as well. 

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
It would be ok to get the usd refund if it went into your PayPal and you could sit on it until the rate was better. Or use it to make usd purchases. However it goes directly back onto your card that the purchase was made on.

You're right. It would not be an issue if it had been the other way around. The way my eBay luck has been lately that would not happen. What if the item had been a $2000 item and I'd been shorted by hundreds? Really should be protected for as long as you are able to get a refund from eBay.

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eBay MBG claim periods are shorter than PayPal.  It hardly makes good business sense for PayPal to guarantee rate parity for refunds for SIX months, after all, it can be 10% difference or even more over that timespan.

[letscleanupmycupboards]

How would you be if you bought an item from Kmart or target today at $50 then it was faulty and went to return it next week but there was a 20% off sale on that item and they told you you'd only get $40 back.

It's the same.

I would have thought if eBay's rules here are all governed under nsw law that this should be protected like any other refund under law in Australia.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
How would you be if you bought an item from Kmart or target today at $50 then it was faulty and went to return it next week but there was a 20% off sale on that item and they told you you'd only get $40 back.

It's the same.

I would have thought if eBay's rules here are all governed under nsw law that this should be protected like any other refund under law in Australia.

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I’d take the $40 and go back through the store and buy the item at the $40 price.  If I was happy to buy it at $50 pre sale I would buy it again at that current price of $40.

I don’t see that comparing a B&M store purchase here in Aust with an international eBay transaction holds water.  Also, if your refund was after one week, as used in your Kmart example, you have been told by others on this thread that you would have received full refund.

If your Kmart example was written “How would you be if you bought an item from Kmart or target today at $50 then it was faulty and went to return it next week two months later but there was a 20% off sale on that item and they told you you'd only get $40 back” then my response would be the same as I have written above.

I guess if I was on the receiving end of a reduced refund that I would take the philosophical position of having bigger things to worry about in my real life than a $7 discrepancy after 2 months and that if that was the worst thing to happen to me in 2017 then I have had a very fortunate 2017.

While it may seem that I have no sympathy for the situation you find yourself in . . . . . . I simply have other things more worthy of my worry time.

[lyndal1838]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:

I would have thought if eBay's rules here are all governed under nsw law that this should be protected like any other refund under law in Australia.

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But your refund is not coming from ebay....it is coming from paypal.

You are getting a refund for the item bought on ebay but it is coming from paypal....the institution that facilitated the payment. 

In your example, you paid for the item directly to Kmart or Target and you get your refund directly from the store....and there is no exchange rate involved.

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
How would you be if you bought an item from Kmart or target today at $50 then it was faulty and went to return it next week but there was a 20% off sale on that item and they told you you'd only get $40 back.

It's the same.

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I'm sorry, but it isn't actually the same, even though I understand why it looks or feels like it's the same.

A more accurate comparison would be going to a bank to exchange some AUD for USD, then several weeks later getting it changed back to AUD (regardless of whether the USD was spent on things / refunded in the interim) - they will most certainly apply the rate of the day. No matter what. They'd actually do that the next day, even if there was a dramatic shift and it meant you lost a couple of hundred in the second exchange. 

The refund you got is still equivalent to the USD that you exchanged your AUD for during the original transaction, so if you bought the same item at the same price (in USD), you'd pay less for it now and be around the same position as if the first purchase went off without a hitch.  I don't mean that as a means to nullify the unfairness you obviously feel, just another aspect to the situation that is more positive than negative.

I also presume there would be legal reasons surrounding why PayPal can neither keep extra funds if it worked out in your favour, nor be obliged to pay extra if there's a shortfall (after their guarantee period, that is). 

[letscleanupmycupboards]

A MBG refund that was forcibly taken from the seller by eBay not by PayPal. PayPal was the payment method only.

Really it's another reason to dislike the whole system. Time to take a break from eBay til next year after the terrible run I've had lately.

[letscleanupmycupboards]

Digital ghost if the usd had gone direct back to my PayPal not my card I would've had the option to spend or convert or hold. But the option doesn't exist as I funded the purchase on my card. If I'd funded from balance I would've had it go back but also lose the backup option of a cc chargeback should that arise.

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
Digital ghost if the usd had gone direct back to my PayPal not my card I would've had the option to spend or convert or hold. But the option doesn't exist as I funded the purchase on my card. If I'd funded from balance I would've had it go back but also lose the backup option of a cc chargeback should that arise.

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Or, in other words, to mitigate a much higher risk (losing all of the money you paid), you took a much lower risk (losing $7 on an exchange).

You would have been refunded the same amount if you paid from an AUD PayPal balance, because refunds are converted to the currency you paid, if your funding source is from a different currency to the seller's, (I purchase from several suppliers overseas, most of whom list in USD, so I've looked at all of the options to reduce costs / risks. My average purchase amount from the suppliers is around $700 and I might be able to save $2-$3 if I convert to USD first, and if I get a refund then it'll be in USD - maybe the exchange rate at the time will be in my favour, maybe it won't, maybe I wouldn't want to sit on several hundred dollars waiting for when it is in my favour, but even if it is, I'll pay again to convert back to AUD, so that few dollars seems a poor investment on the small chance I'll have to get a refund, since some of my suppliers have 30-day lead times, meaning things can be well beyond the time I'd get an exact refund of the debited funds once I receive the goods and discover there's a problem). 

The way I see it, is that a step has been missed, presumably because PayPal takes care of that step and people don't really have to think about it when they buy. 

When you buy an item in another currency, you're essentially purchasing that amount of money in the other currency first, and then getting PP to send it. That's why I used the conversion comparison above, because the fact that an item is purchased instantaeously when using PayPal doesn't negate that the initial transaction is a currency exchange, and so is the final one when something is refunded.