Refunds on returned items

[blackman2033]

If a seller agrees in writing to provide a refund for goods purchased upon return of said goods (and confirmation that the goods have been recieved back to the seller is acknowledged in writing) is their any recourse if the seller does not follow through on their promise to issue the refund and what is that recourse?

[phorum_junkie*]

If you either did not pay with Paypal or did not go through the Paypal dispute process then there is not much you can do unless the seller is an Australian registered business with an ABN and you consider it worth the effort to take a case to Fair Trade.

If you paid with Paypal and it is still within the 45 day period then you can open a dispute and escalate it but should the seller give a different address for the return than you used or you do not have sufficient proof of delivery to Paypal's standard you would lose.

[blackman2033]

Interesting.  The seller confirmed that they recieved the returned items four hours ago and asked for my bank account bsb acc # to issue the refund and had promised to make the refund today.  No refund and no replys as yet.  Obviously I will give it a decent amount of time however it just past the end of normal business hours so I doubt they will keep their promise to issue the refund today.

This could very well be the deciding factor that helps me to decide to never ever use ebay again as I am not at all impressed by people who make empty promises and the simple fact that the seller seems to be immune from keeping someones money via a bank transfer and keeping it if they wish and leaving the buyer out of pocket and only able to leave a "negative" on their feedback.  That must "hurt" them so much.

I dearly hope that by this time tomorrow I am able to say that they kept their word in the end.

[lyndal1838]

If the refund is going to your bank account then you need to allow several days for it to appear.  Bank transfers can take between 3-5 days.

It is far safer to pay with paypal as you have buyer protection if there is a problem with the transaction and refunds are instant.

[phorum_junkie*]

Sounds as if you ignored all the ebay advice and did not pay using a safe payment method, had you done so and also read up on how to trade safely there would have been no issue. A bit strong to blame ebay and run for the hills because you acted irresponsibly.

Bank transfer can take anything up to 5 working days depending on which banks are involved, between the big banks it may take only one but only if the payment is made early on a pre Friday morning.

[blackman2033]

Right you are.