How to refund for fault

[lane-ends]

Buyer purchases and contacts direct about a fault. They have justifiable complaint, but have not gone through refunds process to claim not as described. This would be seen as being considerate to avoid a strike upfront..

However, under new system, I agree to refund how do i do it? Only options via Ebay are either out of stock/cant supply (my strike) or buyer cancellation request (no strike). I made the mistake recently of selecting the first option thinking its going to be defect for not as described anyway. BUT. a resolved not as described is no longer going to be a defect whereas inability to supply will be. I shot myself in the foot. So how do you refund outside of buyer initiating refund claim.. Staight via paypal? 

[lane-ends]

That makes it 3  cancelled transactions out of 510 which now equates to loss of TRS.

Still dont understand why it is preffered you send faulty items rather than alert a buyer there is a fault and ask if they want to cancel.

Moral seems to be send the customer something, even if its only an empty box, then let them complain, refund and its all sweet.

[jensmanchester-australia]

On the odd occasion where a buyer gets a faulty item and I am unable to replace I ask the buyer if they would like a full refund and for the sale to be cancelled. Once they confirm this I put through the cancellation as buyers request and process the refund.

[lane-ends]

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@jensmanchester-australia wrote:

On the odd occasion where a buyer gets a faulty item and I am unable to replace I ask the buyer if they would like a full refund and for the sale to be cancelled. Once they confirm this I put through the cancellation as buyers request and process the refund.

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I tried that  but buyers wize up to the fact that you are ducking blame. This buyer requested if I went through the cancel option it had to be seller initiated. I guess with the new system you should be directing them to the buyer instigated returns process if it is going to be default free as long as you resolve it.

[digital*ghost]

I do the same as jensmanchester - the way I see it, the buyer ultimately is asking for the transaction to be cancelled, the reason why (don't want it, it's faulty, whatever) doesn't change anything in my eyes. When they contact me and we agree on a refund, I let them know I'm initating a cancellation and that it will trigger a full refund. 

I'd just tell the buyer the truth - you can only select between buyer requested cancellation, or cancelled due to out of stock; out of stock is inappropriate. 

You can also just issue a full refund from PayPal, some sellers have reported that they received out of stock defects for doing that, but whenever I've done it I haven't received a defect (there's always been messages between myself and the buyer prior to the refund, and I think that helps). You don't get any FVF credits when you do it that way, though.