refund for combining post

[house_of_rose]

I had a buyer who purchased X3 seperate items off me and paid for all 3 items without allowing me to send an invoice with combined post so they ended up paying too much post.  I refunded the excess post to the buyer, expecting to get a refund from ebay for post fees and now ebay are stating they will not refund partial payments.

[digital*ghost]

eBay hasn't ever had an official policy that provided for refunds of fees when sellers give partial refunds to buyers, though in the past it could be requested, and now their official policy is that no fee refunds are provided.

The best thing to do is try to make it as clear as possible that any advertised combined postage rates only apply when items are checked out together, so as to encourage as many as possible not to check out items separately. Then if people do and you want to refund excess, provide a refund minus the eBay fee charged (this is how I tend to deal with it - the only time anyone has ever complained is when they assumed I was refunding for items I couldn't / didn't supply, I'm on managed payments now and I assume selecting "postage discount" as the reason for the refund communicates it a bit better as I haven't had anyone go off on me about that since I was switched over 🙂 ).  

[gutterpunkz05]

Ebays fee is applicable on the original invoice total, any postage you refund to the buyer is purely a matter of goodwill between yourself and the buyer.  Ebay were not a party to any refund and as such the original fees are still applicable.  When calculating any potential refund for postage, you should take the non refundable ebay fees into consideration.

[everard6920]

My customers do this all the time but my listings clearly state that if items are not paid for in one payment, or without requesting an invoice, then all stated postage deals do not apply and excess postage is refunded minus fees.

Have never had a problem - in fact, quite a few buyers message me back and thank me for refunding. If you're clear about it, you should be fine, except for the occasional numpty as Digi seems to have had

[paper-jack]

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@house_of_rose wrote:

I had a buyer who purchased X3 seperate items off me and paid for all 3 items without allowing me to send an invoice with combined post so they ended up paying too much post.  I refunded the excess post to the buyer, expecting to get a refund from ebay for post fees and now ebay are stating they will not refund partial payments.

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On another account my listings clearly state combined postage can only be done before any payment is made and I give a brief 'how to' guide. But still customers buy more than one item and pay separately, probably because they are using a phone app and maynot be reading the full description.

So now I work out the amount of over paid postage, minus fees, and offer the buyer a choice of an extra item - which has worked well. Not a solution for everyone but I thought worth mentioning.