I received 4 defect strikes because I had refunded excess postage where people had made multiple purchases (I do free postage listings). The defects showed up as "refunds for run out of stock or item sold to someone else" on my seller dashboard. I had a hell of a fight with eBay to have them removed (and won) but was told that any refunded amount would be logged as a defect.

I know people have been told different stories about this by different eBay reps, but I now send any refund or discount as a "send money" transaction rather than a refund. I put on the message section what it is and if I ever found myself accused of not sending it would expect to be able to point Paypal to the transaction as proof.

I would still rather risk doing it this way than copping a heap of defects again for trying to do the right thing by my customers.

Marina.