Hello,
I’m looking for some advice.
Late last night, an item I listed — worth around £405 — was sold. We received the standard confirmation email: “Great news — your item has sold,” and this morning we logged into the app and began preparing the postage. We paid £12.75 for Royal Mail Special Delivery by 1pm. The label has been printed, and my partner took the parcel to work, planning to post it ASAP. Despite the high postage cost, we offered it to the buyer for free and covered the fee ourselves.
However, around 10:30am today, I noticed a message from the buyer saying the purchase was a mistake. He stated that if we posted the item, he would simply return it and expect a refund.
I managed to get in touch with my partner just in time — thankfully, the item hasn’t been posted yet.
I attempted to issue a refund, but because the postage (£12.75) is marked as “Complete” and already paid from my balance, the system will only allow me to refund £392.43 out of the £405.18 the buyer was charged.
Could you please advise on the best way to handle this situation?
To add a bit of context: the buyer did message me last week with an offer, which I accepted by enabling the offer option on the listing. However, they didn’t use that feature at the time, and the item ended up selling normally. The whole thing is now giving me a bad feeling — not just the inconvenience, but the fact that we’re likely going to be left out of pocket by £12.75 after doing everything correctly.
Should the buyer be expected to cover the postage fee in this case? Is it reasonable for me to simply refund the maximum I can (£392.43) and explain why the full amount isn’t possible at this point?
I’ve attached the full message history with the buyer for reference below.
Many thanks for your help.
A
------ Chat Log:
16 Mar 2025 12:00 - Him: Hi would u take 400 mate
16 Mar 2025 14:35 - Me: Hi - I've added best offer to the listing page. Feel free to submit it via that, and I will take it from there. The system is glitching when I so it via this message system. Cheers.
Yesterday 22:53 - Him: Hi, can you cancel this I didn’t mean to buy this. It was in my basket. It just saves me sending it back to you when I receive it thank you.
Today 10:20 - Him: Hi I’ll be posting them back out to u soon as I get them mate
Today 10:51 - Me: Hi. I don’t know where I stand with this my partner did take the item with him this morning with the eBay self printed postage label so I’ve just sent him a message asking if he has posted it yet. Nightmare. We’ve also paid the £12.50 already for the postage via eBay.
Today 10:52 - Him: I messaged after one minute of paying saying can it be cancelled but as long as you didn’t scan the code doesn’t cost you
Today 10:54 - Me: Did not receive the message notification to this one come through this morning at 10 am. He has the cameras with him. He’s a bus driver so was planning on posting it so you would get it before 1 pm tomorrow so hopefully he will see my message and does not send it. Lets me see if I can raise something with eBay. Have they took the money out of your account? (I also sent out ring footage still that showed my partner leaving the house with the item at 6:30am this morning.)
Today 10:57 - Me: Okay, got in touch. He has not posted yet. Leave it with me. 👍🏼
Today 11:05 - Him: Yes, the money is gone out of my account. That’s why I asked you to cancel it. Thank u
Today 11:12 - Me: The most I can refund you is £392.43 - the postage has already be deducted from my funds sadly. If your not happy with this, I think you might need to raise a dispute with eBay on your end. Are you happy with me to proced with the £392.43 refund, or should I wait for you to raise a ticket with ebay? Here is a screenshot of my ebay page, to prove im not trying to make you pay for postage I can quash, as its not not an option on my end. (Sent him a screenshot of my eBay funds and the postage thats marked as compete in processing.)
No reply yet from the buyer.
