Refunds

[phillsvinyl]

Why do eBay take a refund from you - when the buyer has not paid yet - but requested the refund as ordered by mistake.

Then ebay take out of your funds.

No payment has gone through as of yet - except the payment from my funds for a mistake someone has made - in ordering by mistake - surly if they have not paid i should not refund the payment i never recived.

What if i wanted to use my funds to buy something i needed ??

eBay needs to change this stupid nonsense.

[thetimetower]

That isn't possible. U can only refund when they've paid. Whether it has cleared for u or not is a different story. Wouldnt surprise me if ebay refunds from ur available balance when their payment hasnt cleared yet but that's just another private seller nerf that i dont get.

[phillsvinyl]

Well they have and i have not recived the amount back - i will be in touch with CS to find out whats gone on here

[phillsvinyl]

Spoke to CS

ebays system is not geared to send refunds on the same day, and will take the funds out of your account if you issue the refund on the same day.

The money i refunded SHOULD be back in my account by Wednesday as they are waiting on the card issuer to get autherisiation.

So in reality - you should wait to be paid before refunding.  I will watch out for this in the future.

[akemp1]

Yeah it's not right that ebay are unable to take the refund from the original purchase funds and instead dip into the seller's balance from previous sales.

The buyer tax and stupid delivery should never have launched, let alone been widely deployed, with such defects outstanding.

How come the bugs that they accepted for launch were always in their favour? Like the inability to combine buyer tax and postage when selling multiple items. The other place does it so well the seller can even offer automatic % bundle discounts. I guess ebay only  ironed out all the priority bugs that affected their own profitability.

As a buyer I have 0 active orders with ebay and 4 active orders with the place they are badly copying.

As a seller my sales rate is equal between the two platforms despite having significantly more listings here.

Every so often I take a few listings down from ebay to replenish the other place's listings.

It hadn't even occurred to me to signup to the other place until ebay started dumping on everyone.

They have badly messed up and I almost feel sorry for them it's not going to end well.

[lavenderthimblebunny]

I do wonder what the payments on hold until delivery + two days is for.  

I'd have thought it's a reasonable argument for refunds from a sale cancelled at the buyer's request to simply reverse the charge and refund the payment held as pending by ebay, but not yet accessible by the seller in the seller's ebay account? 

I'm still unclear what the hold period achieves if it isn't a swift and painless cancelled sale reversal feature? 

Leaving aside ebay holding and gouging the buyer's/ seller's money for that lengthy holding period:  Surely a straightforward reversal of funds (from that sale's held funds) when a buyer changes their mind, would be a great feature for the buyer and the seller?  Clawing money from the seller's bank account is rude!

[akemp1]

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@lavenderthimblebunny wrote:

I do wonder what the payments on hold until delivery + two days is for.  

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It seems to be pointless activity to justify the buyer tax and an acceptance that the ebay's anti-fraud technology is so borked that it can't tell the difference between a new scam seller signup offering the latest iphone (where the money might never be recovered) and some of us extremely long term users who have never scammed anyone or cost ebay anything in refunds from their own money.

I'd be insulted if I didn't realise it was just a symptom of ebay being totally clueless.

Ebay are 30 years old this year and don't realise how embarrassing they have become.

Thank heavens for competition who actually value their users - it was never healthy that ebay had such a high share of the online second hand market so what's happening with their self-inflicted decline is overall a good thing for consumers.

I'm no longer loyal or rooting for them - they now have to compete for my business like every other platform and that's how it should be.

[marco@ebay]

Hi phillsvinyl, thanks for your post.

If payment for an item is not received, it is impossible for us to refund it, this is because an order is never placed/completed until payment by the buyer is issued. If you're seeing a refund, it must be related to a different transaction, or the buyer did pay in the end and probably you missed it? If you are still not sure about this, please confirm the item number, and I will be happy to take a look for you no problem.

Thank you,

Marco

[phillsvinyl]

I will wait till Wednesday as requested by CS - but eBay did take the funds out of my account - and im yet to recive payment - as I say i will wait untill Wednesday as requested by CS

[marco@ebay]

Thanks for your reply, phillsvinyl. 

Based on what you've said so far, would you know if this was a case of the buyer paying and then cancelling? If the buyer requested cancellation, then the refund would come from your payment methos, and not your eBay Balance as the buyer's payment was probably still being held at the time. However, once you cancel the transaction and issue a refund, the held funds will be released and compensate the refund taken from your payment method.

If this is what happened, this is how it works and you won't have anything to worry about. If it's something else, then you can follow customer services instructions. If you need anything else, you can still let us know here.

Thank you,

Marco

[lucy_farmer]

'I'd be insulted if I didn't realise it was just a symptom of ebay being totally clueless.'

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Oh mate, they're not being clueless! 

They know exactly what they're doing...... it's the little tiny amounts of interest (on that 2 days) that collectively add up to £££ to make it worth while p'eeing their sellers off!

And, as such, we should all feel highly insulted...☹️

[akemp1]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

Oh mate, they're not being clueless! 

They know exactly what they're doing...... it's the little tiny amounts of interest (on that 2 days) that collectively add up to £££ to make it worth while p'eeing their sellers off!

And, as such, we should all feel highly insulted...☹️

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Yeah but all these extra ways to squeeze more profit only work if people continue to use the site.

This whole mess has taught me there are better places to buy and sell which the younger generation already knew. In just a few weeks I have gone from being 'ebay-only' to them being only 25-50% of my buying and selling activity and that's just with a handful of concurrent listings at the other site.

I can only see ebay going into decline if they don't accept the need to compete to survive.

[judydoodles]

"If the buyer requested cancellation, then the refund would come from your payment methos, and not your eBay Balance as the buyer's payment was probably still being held at the time....

...If this is what happened, this is how it works and you won't have anything to worry about"

I think this is the bit of the explanation that some of us don't follow.  Held where? In ebay's account?  Not the seller's.  Would it not be possible to refund it from wherever it's held?  The access to a seller's own money in their bank account doesn't feel the logical solution ebay is offering.  

Is the advice for seller's to postpone the cancellation until the funds clear into their ebay wallet?  I can't see that's great in terms of customer service for the buyer.  To the seller it's impertinent.

The ebay explanation is penalising the seller for complying with a cancellation request for buyer remorse.  Saying that eventually that money will be released into the sellers account seems counter-intuitive...it's not the seller's money as soon as the sale is cancelled.  It should be reversed when the sale is reversed.

[phillsvinyl]

To Make you all aware

The funds come from your ebay balance ( if you have one like i do for postage and such like) I keep around £100 in there for any items i need - etc etc

The return did not come out of my bank - it came out of my ebay funds.

What i find strange is why if the buyer wants to cancel because ordered incorectly - why i should have funds taken from me - and wait for thier payment to enter my account - there must be a easier way of just refunding the buyer - or just cancerling the process?

[judydoodles]

Thank you I misunderstood. 

It would be interesting to know what happens when there's no accessible funds in a seller account.  Would the money come from the seller's bank account or from the pending funds?  Ideally it should come from the pending funds, otherwise would the seller have to wait for the maximum time to recover the refunded purchase price?  

It's possible that others like me don't fully understand the holding funds process?

[wintersdawn1]

My theory is ebay will not release a payment, even in the case of a cancellation, until they have finished making interest on it etc.  Due to this the private seller will have to refund a buyer's money from their registered bank account/card.