Warning to Sellers if Buyers use Simple Delivery and want to return items | Member To Member Support

lifeslittleluxuries3 · 2025-10-10T18:36:06.183000Z

I have been an eBay Seller and Buyer for 23 years. I am a private seller and over the course of the 23 years I have sold in excess of 1,000 items.I have never had a request for an item to be returned until last week. The item did not meet the buyer's expectations and I immediately offered a discount which they rejected. I then tried to work out how to issue a return postage label to the buyer for a full refund to be issued upon the item's return.It was not clear how to do this on the App (it was actually very confusing and the FAQs were useless) and unfortunately I inadvertedly issued a full refund with immediate effect.I immediately rang Customer Services and spoke to a helpful lady who said she was able to issue a return postage label to the buyer but could not share the correspondance with me??I asked for a tracking number which she provided me. She advised me to wait 3 business days for the buyer to return the item and to contact them again if the item had not been returned.I messaged the buyer immediately asking them to return the item in its original packaging and I waited 5 days before messaging the buyer a second time to ask them to confirm they have returned the item.Both messages generated an auto-response stating 'Your buyer has reached out about their order. Since you used Simple Delivery, we'll work with your buyer directly on any delivery related questions.'So it seems I am unable to converse directly with the buyer at all.I have tried to track the item with the tracking number and it states it will not update until a delivery is attempted so I am unable to see if the return has commenced.I have had four email conversations with eBay customer services representatives today who generally do not understand that I need help contacting the buyer and asking them to return the item.I requested a call back from an eBay customer representative who talked a lot about the platform's policies and generally inferred how they protected eBay from getting involved and no she would not contact the buyer and encouraged me to carry on messaging them, and ultimately she actually stated 'I am not willing to help you....' That led to my response that that was exactly what my issue was 'that nobody from eBay was willing to help me'. She then hung up on me. So my warnings are that the Simple Delivery service appears to block / redirect / prevent correspondance with a buyer.eBay customer services are 'unwilling to help' if you have completed a refund inadvertedly due to the policies that prevent them helping you.And if you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with an unreasonable buyer you are likely going to find yourself in a loss situation as I have.

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Warning to Sellers if Buyers use Simple Delivery and want to return items | Member To Member Support | eBay UK