accepting a return item

On Mar 18, a buyer emailed us, not happy with purchase. we asked him to return item in good shape, we would do a refund.   Today got email from ebay about this, when we click on the accept return, it said we have to pay return postage - we didn't agree to that, so stopped at step 1 in the process.  How do we stop this process?  Would be happy to refund original costs if they pay to return the item.