PayPal payment refunded as seller unregistered.

[tahteetess]

A month ago I bought an item using paypal. It has now been refunded  by PayPal as seller had not registered with paypal. I only ever use paypal and item was listed showing PayPal as a payment method. I have emailed seller to ask what they want to do but have had no answer. The amount is only £4.09 but it seems wrong to have an item I have not paid for. Unfortunately there were 2 items in the listing and 1 of them I could not use so I binned it. I do not have sellers name or address. I have tried to ask PayPal and eBay for help but unable to speak with anyone because of the current crisis. None of the help screens cover this topic. Any suggestions please?

[ruby*tuesday · Accepted solution]

Sorry but there is nothing more you can do other than see if there is any information in your Purchase History?

[tahteetess · Accepted solution]

Thank you. There is nothing in the purchase history . I'll put it down to experience. Silly feeling guilty about something I have no control over

[geosacha007]

Wait for the seller to contact you. 

It is a common error for new sellers to let ebay prefill the paypal payment box with an email that isn't their paypal email.  It does not necessarily mean they are not  registered with paypal. 

Many new sellers think they can't see their payment  in paypal due to the 21 day hold so send the item when they should not..  It can take them a long time to realise paypal is never going to give them the money.  At that point all they can do is contact the buyer and ask them to repay to the correct paypal address.  

This can also happen to experienced sellers as sometimes ebay randomly throws up an incorrect paypal address.

[tahteetess]

Thank you all for your answers. i was a bit out of my depth.

[red_magpie]

The amount is only £4.09 but it seems wrong to have an item I have not paid for.

Don't waste your sympathy. EBay requires sellers to have a PayPal account. It's not even clear how you were able to pay by PayPal, if the seller didn't have an account. It's possible that they had one, but it was closed by PayPal.

If the seller asks for repayment, or opens an unpaid item case (which is highly unlikely) you can consider your position. Otherwise, just forget it and move on.