When I say my number of defects I phoned eBay because the reason on the dashboard stated "run out of stock or item sold to someone else". I asked where that came from because I don't have stock as such - I sell second hand items and new oddments - and when she checked cancelled trransactions, she aknowledged that the only reasons given for those were when people changed their mind or items didn't fit etc. The defects weren't from those, and I have no low dsr's for anything..

She then asked if I had given refunds for anything else other than cancelled transactions and I told her about refunding excess postage and the said that was what the defects were - if a refund was given (even partial) without a cancelled transaction , it would be a defect. As I said, The defects were removed, but I was told I would continue to accrue them if I kept doing it that way, and the only way to give my customers a refund for postage according to her (with free postage listings) was way too complicated for me. She said the only thing the defects could have come from was the refunds (without a mutual cancellation), and she understood that that was how the system worked.

I know that this is not everyone's experience, but this is my point. Different people are being told different things, and indeed it seems as if the system is not functioning uniformly. So I pay the extra fvf on the postage, fees on the Paypal transactions, and give the customer back what I think is fair. I have accrued no defects since I started doing it this way. If I needed to refund someone for a fauly item or similar, I would definitely do it via the whole cancelled transaction process though.

Marina.