Refund a return without the return?

[the_bald_orc]

So this is a bit of a new one for me.

I had a click and collect order that the buyer didn't pick up in time, so argos started the return last Monday.

Today I receive a message from eBay saying the return should be with me by now, refund the customer within two days.

Only the return hasn't arrived, tracking just shows the item was posted last Monday.

I assume either I refund, or eBay does along with an account defect? The trouble is I doubt I can claim from the courier as I'm not even sure what courier was handling the return, I have a collect plus tracking number but it leads to a dead page.

I expect this is one of those cases where I just absorb the loss?

[game_raid]

We have had this once before and eBay covered the loss as the item was lost in transit, I would get a callback and no matter what you do, do not refund and close the case or you will be liable for the loss.

It will always go from the tracking to show as delivered/returned back to you the system will not refund without this.

Click and collect returns do take longer to get returned back but in our case it was over 3 weeks.

There was a bug at one time where a return would say to refund the buyer similar to the message you're seeing even though the item hadn't been delivered but the expected return delivery date had passed, it caught out quite a few sellers at the time and it looks like it hasn't been resolved on click and collect returns.

[the_bald_orc]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'll hold off on refunding and speak to CS.