Buyer opened a return for an item that the tracking shows as still in transit

[mod81]

I sold an item to a buyer in the US on the 28th Dec and sent it via a Royal Mail tracked international, the buyer has opened a return a few days ago for return reason as 'doesn't fit' which means they have to pay for returns postage so I didnt really think much of it.

I thought it had arrived very quickly in the US so I decided to checked the tracking today which shows its not even been delivered to the buyer yet, its only just arrived in the US as of yesterday.

The buyer has zero feedback and has only been on ebay since December 2023 so I am wondering if this is some sort of scam and the buyer is going to return an empty package or something? Should I be proactive and report to ebay that the buyer has requested a return for an item which they haven't even received yet?

[rjwilmsi]

I'd assume incompentence rather than malice. Perhaps buyer didn't realize it was an international purchase so really wanted to open Item Not Received case, or to cancel purchase due to change of mind.

I would accept the return then leave it as-is. Buyer has to provide their own label. Then the buyer has to prove to eBay that they returned something to you.

Given the cost of international postage the buyer isn't likely to post an empty package back to you. If no movement on the return case just leave it, it will time out after 3 weeks or so.

Keep screenshots showing the tracking status etc. so if there are issues you can later point out to eBay that return case was opened before item delivered.