Seller refuses to send me a return label

[thetrinketseller]

I received an item from a seller that turned out to be faulty. After providing pictures of the item and opening a return request with eBay, the seller agreed to let me return it.

However, the postage label that they provided has expired before I was able to post it due to Christmas opening times.

Now the seller is refusing to provide another label, and eBay are saying I need to return the item before the 7th in order to receive a refund.

I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here. What can I do, other than cover the cost of return myself?

[m25jet]

As has already been said, you'll have to pay for the return postage yourself given that you've allowed the eBay Returns Label to expire.  However, when you post the item back to the seller make sure that you post the item back via a fully tracked means of postage and then enter that tracking number into the case.  So long as the tracking number proves attempted or successful delivery of the item back to the seller you will be able to get a refund, even if you have to ask eBay to step in and force a refund.  However, given that the seller provided you with a returns label and you didn't use it there's no guarantee that the seller would refund your return postage costs as well as he/she wouldn't be obliged to if you failed to use the prepaid postage label provided, and if the seller chose not to reimburse the return postage costs you'd have an extremely hard job to say the least in trying to force the seller to refund the amount that you paid for the return postage.

In the event that you still haven't posted the item back to the seller by Thursday 7th January 2021 and you lose the chance to get a refund via the eBay Resolution Centre try opening a case against the seller via PayPal.  Provide PayPal with the tracking number so that they can put a trace on the item and see whether an attempt has been made at delivery, or if the item has been successfully received by the seller.  PayPal tend to check cases far more closely than eBay do and they also allow buyers far longer to open a case if need be - one hundred and eighty days from the date of payment as opposed to eBay's thirty days from the latest estimated date of delivery - so you should have plenty of time to open a PayPal case if you do have to take that option in order to secure a refund.

Should it become necessary to go down the PayPal route in order to get a refund make sure that you escalate the case to PayPal after two days but before the twenty day cut-off point.  So long as you escalate the case to PayPal in time and do not allow it to time out you should definitely be able to secure a refund of the money that you paid for the item in the event that you run out of time to do so via the eBay case.  However, PayPal would not make the buyer refund the return postage costs so unless the buyer takes it upon himself/herself to refund your own return postage costs in addition to refunding the price that you paid for the item, you shouldn't expect to be able to get this back again.

[95ardenfield]

Christmas opening times? Everywhere has been open for you to return in time,now you will have to pay for the return yourself

[tsmgmd]

Most post offices would have been open Christmas Eve and then closed Christmas Day and possibly Saturday.

Would be closed Sunday and Monday which was classed as boxing day.

What was the date on the label.