I recently refunded a buyer, but now know item was delivered. How do I get my money back?

[claire5513]

I recently sold an item.  The buyer did not inform me that it hadn't arrived, and instead opened a claim for reimbursement. 

I refunded her money immediately because I had mislaid the Certificate of Posting and couldn't check. 

Less than an hour later, I found the C of P and checked Royal Mail Track and Trace.  It showed the item HAD been delivered, 2 days prior to the buyer opening her claim.  I was unable to contact the buyer, and so made a report to eBay. 

Now I can't find out what, if anything, is going on?  If the item had been delivered, then it's no longer the seller's responsibility to refund and the buyer needs to take it up with Royal Mail if, indeed, she does not have my item (which I have no way of knowing).  Try as I might, I can't contact eBay to ask if my report will result in action, and the website makes it impossible for me to contact the buyer (the system will not allow me to send her a message, l assume because of her claim against me?).

What's my next move, or should I kiss my money goodbye?

[m25jet]

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@claire5513 wrote:

I'm new to selling and didn't realise I had to add the barcode number on the certificate of posting to the item and that this serves as tracking info (I do now!).

Thank you for suggesting I contact PayPal. I would never have thought of this and will give it a go.

Good advice all round. Much appreciated!

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If you're unfamiliar with how to add a buyer to your Blocked Bidders List click on this link htttps://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/ebay/isapi.dll?bidderblocklogin and a new page with a big white box on it will appear on the screen.  Add the buyer's User ID to that box and then click on the Save button beneath it.  As soon as you have done that the buyer will have been successfully added to your Blocked Bidders List and from that point onwards will no longer be able to purchase anything else from you.

If you haven't already done so go to the option to leave feedback.  Look for the "Report Buyer" option.  Once you've spotted that option file a report against the buyer so as to ensure that there is an official record against the buyer of her abuse of the eBay Money Back Guarantee.  That way if she tries the same trick on any other sellers and gets reported too many times then eBay may well close her account and chuck her off of the site for good.

No matter how angry you may be feeling about the buyer's behaviour, don't feel tempted to leave her a negative feedback comment.  It's been against eBay policy for sellers to leave anything other than positive feedback for buyers for over a decade now due to the fact that many bad sellers would often use the threat of negative feedback to deter buyers from leaving them well-deserved negative feedback.  As a result eBay changed the rules and put a stop to sellers leaving anything but positive feedback for buyers, which unfortunately has resulted in a very buyer biased feedback system, in that the seller doesn't get the opportunity to leave truthful feedback from as to how he/she felt the transaction went if the transaction could not be described as a positive transaction from the seller's point of view.  If you were to leave a buyer a negative feedback comment under the guise of a positive feedback and the buyer reported it to eBay then the comment would be removed at the buyer's request  and your account would end up getting hit with a black mark relating to breach of feedback policy.  Therefore, when it comes to feedback, if a transaction goes badly for you the best option is to refrain from leaving the buyer any feedback at all and reporting the buyer if appropriate.

[claire5513]

I have used the Feedback option to report the buyer already. I was able to explain the situation and provide the tracking info (already logged against the item). I was naively hoping that eBay would then sort it out as it's a simple enough case, but now I realise this won't be happening as nobody has been in touch since the automated email saying they would look into it.

I think I'll have to give this one up as an expensive learning experience.