Seller cancelled order, refund bounced, not responding - next action?

[pokemon-madness]

Hi everyone.

I've never posted on here before so apologies if this isn't the correct place / format and thank you in advance for any advice given.

I'm just after some advice regarding a purchase that I'm having issues with and that Ebay doesn't seem to either understand the issue or care about it - I don't seem to be able to request a call back or talk to anyone at Ebay about the problem, so I'm hoping I may find an answer here.

In short, I won an item last week by auction and (as I always do) made instant payment and expected the transaction to complete smoothly.

A week later, I got a cancellation from the seller, saying that the amount was being refunded.

I queried this with the seller in an attempt to find out what was happening and why the order had been cancelled.

His reply was that he sold them on Facebook for a better price and is closing his Ebay account anyway.

I reported the seller to Ebay and left negative feedback, which was swiftly removed under the guise of Covid-19 Seller protection, despite this having absoutely nothing to do with Covid-19.

I then got another email from Paypal, saying that the refund had failed and to contact the seller.

I've done exactly that and have no response, nor do I expect one given that they have confirmed that they are leaving Ebay.

I'm unable to feed this back to Ebay as it just asks me to confirm I've recieved the refund and I feel like I'm going in circles trying to resolve the problem.

Has anyone had a similar issue?

[rusticrye]

As the refund has failed, you will have to contact Paypal (also not easy at present, I'm afraid) as they are the payment processor.

@pokemon-madness