seller has received returned item now wants my email address to give me a refund?

[red_magpie]

It sounds as though both you and your seller have gone about this the wrong way.

There are different procedures for change of mind returns and not as described returns, but both should be dealt with through eBay's resolution centre. EBay then checks that the item has been returned, and processes the buyer's refund and the seller's return of selling fees.

If you have bypassed these procedures to arrange a private refund you may as well give the seller your PayPal email address to receive it. As you've been in a transaction with them they could have obtained this anyway.

[m25jet]

The seller is talking absolute rubbish.  Either he's a new seller who doesn't understand how selling on eBay works, or he's deliberately trying to drag the case out for so long that you run out of time to escalate the case, in the hope that he'll get to keep the returned item without actually refunding your money.

In order to ensure that you get your money back first of all reply to the seller via the case, telling him quite clearly that he doesn't need your e-mail address in order to issue the refund, and that all he needs to do is to issue the refund via the eBay case.  If you do this then that ought to make it clear to the seller that you know what you're talking about and understand how eBay refunds work, in which case if he is trying to trick you then he ought to realise that it won't work and refund your money quickly so as to avoid you having to get eBay involved, which would prove to be extremely damaging to his selling account if you did indeed have to get eBay involved in order to secure a refund.

If the seller refuses to issue the refund voluntarily then escalate the case to eBay at the first chance that you get.  If you have to ask eBay to step in then so long as the tracking number on the eBay returns label proves attempted or successful delivery of the item back to the seller's address then eBay will force the refund and you will get a total refund of the money that you paid to the seller for the item.  If that does indeed happen then the seller will receive a damaging defect on his account, so he would be unwise to mess you about.  Do not let the case time out - that is more than likely what the seller is hoping for, as he may well be keeping his fingers crossed that you are not aware as to what you need to do in order to escalate the case to eBay in order to to force the refund, which you can only do if you do not allow the case to expire.

In the event that something goes wrong and the case expires on you, or if for some reason eBay decide the case in the seller's favour (which I doubt they would if the seller has not refunded you) then contact PayPal about the matter and explain to them what has happened.  The PayPal UK Customer Service Team's contact numbers are 0208 080 6500 and 0800 358 9448.  Make sure you have the eBay tracking number to hand, as you will need to provide PayPal with that information in order to stand any chance of getting your refund.  Ask them to put a trace on the tracking number, and so long as it proves attempted or successful delivery of the item back to the seller PayPal will refund your money.  PayPal tend to check cases in far more detail than eBay do, plus they also allow buyers a maximum of one hundred and eighty days from the date of payment to open a case against the seller if need be, so if you do end up having to go down the PayPal route to get your money back then you ought to receive a total refund of the money that you paid the seller for the item.