I am extremely disappointed with an issue that I had confirmation that a case was resolved in December via eBay, but that eBay has kept trying to apply an unauthorised charge to in the past few weeks (8 weeks after the case was resolved and closed).
I have held this account with eBay for over 20 years, have both sold and bought items, and have a 100% positive seller rating. I sold a coat back in December, in excellent condition, the buyer gave a fraudulent reason why it was 'not as described', and then sent it back with additional damages that were not there and in an unsaleable condition. When I called eBay to try to apply a partial refund to the buyer (I was needing help how to do this on the portal as I had never done it before), after I had told the story of what happened, he was very empathetic and offered that eBay would pay out the refund on my behalf and that I would only need to pay £0.99 towards the refund. I was unsure of what he actually meant at first, so both my husband and I got him to talk through the process several times and he emphatically reassured us many times - we would receive the original money from the coat sale as the item came back damaged and unsaleable condition, eBay would pay the refund on my behalf because the item was damaged and I would only need to contribute £0.99 to the refund given to the buyer and that eBay would pay the rest. It was very clear and he clarified this several times. The man we spoke to sounded very senior, professional and in a legislative position to be able to apply this, and even though he was reassuring it would definitely happen, he said it was a special circumstance.
Disappointingly, I never received any email confirmation of the call afterwards and we had to keep chasing eBay to release our funds for the sale as was promised for over 10 days. On the 23rd of December we got a call saying that my funds had now been released and asking if they could close the case.
I checked the account, my funds had been released and I assumed they had accounted for the £0.99 fee into it as the funds were £33.40 which we assumed were the £40 I sold the coat for minus the postage we had to pay to get the coat back, but no accurate or definitive breakdown could be found. On my account it said the buyer had received the refund, Ebay had paid, and my funds had been released, in accordance with what was promised.
Then, 6.5 weeks later, on the 6th of February, I got an email that my bank account was going to be charged for £40 (the amount I sold the coat for and the same amount as the refund). There was no other explanation for why in the email. We tried contacting customer service and they said they can't reverse the charge as it was already initiated but will contact people who are more senior to sort it out and reverse the charge on my account. They said I would be contacted within 5 days. 10 days later nothing had happened at all, no contact, and in the meantime I needed to contact my bank to get this unauthorised charge cancelled before going on. It was listed as a direct debit, but I never agreed to this £40 charge out of nowhere, and the bank also seemed familiar with Ebay's ways and walked through the process of cancelling the direct debit and reversing the charge if necessary.
The payment therefore did not go through but I'm still receiving emails asking me to give payment details for a payment I initiated - one I never initiated in the first place because the case was closed months ago. They are claiming I owe them £40 which shows on the system now, for 'accrued sellers costs' when they promised that Ebay would cover the refund due to this special circumstance minus £0.99, when they did, my funds were released and the case was closed. From my perspective, if it was true that I as the seller was due to cover the refund costs, my funds from the sale would have never been released as I know that Ebay withholds funds if a seller needs to give a refund. Whenever we have tried to call Ebay since it is extremely difficult getting anywhere, one customer service rep had the audacity yesterday to say that our story wasn't even believable! The customer service rep back in December did say it was a special circumstance but he offered and initiated it rather than us and confirmed and walked through it with us many times, but then apparently did not leave any notes on the system. Does anyone know how far back call recordings are kept as I am hoping Ebay can retrieve this one telephone conversation from 14th December?
This is very disappointing and stressful as a person who has had an excellent buyer and seller account for all these years and has really put me off Ebay as it seems someone has either lied to me or not done their job properly along the way. Has something similar happened to other people out there?
