I get your point, and in principle I agree. In this case though, although the buyer has admitted in messages there’s nothing wrong with the lens and it’s just not for them, it was still opened as an INAD (“not working/defective”), so it has to be handled that way under eBay’s system.

Realistically, while I’m under no obligation to accept that, it’s generally not worth fighting. Most experienced sellers will just take it back, refund, relist, and move on. You might report it afterwards and often get the return postage refunded if it’s a false INAD—so it usually balances out and isn’t a big issue.

I don’t mind doing that in fairness—I’d rather someone be happy with what they buy.

The issue here is that I wasn’t able to process the return on-platform as normal. I’ve been forced to arrange it off-platform at a much higher cost (£15 vs ~£4), and because of that I can’t make the usual claim to recover the postage from a false INAD.

So the problem isn’t the return itself—it’s that the normal process (which protects both buyer and seller) has been removed, leaving me covering significantly higher costs with no way to recover them.

On top of that, when speaking to support and the leadership team, they acknowledged this is something that’s recently changed due to issues they’ve had with returns and claims. That effectively means their internal problem is now being passed onto sellers.

What’s more concerning is that when I asked where this change is documented, what items it applies to, and how we’re supposed to know this in advance, they couldn’t give a clear answer and admitted they weren’t sure themselves.

That’s the bigger issue for me—when using a platform like this, you need to know what you are and aren’t covered for. Up until now, returns have always been straightforward: generate the label on-platform, stay protected, and claim back costs where appropriate.

Being pushed off-platform like this is completely new to me and, as it stands, puts sellers at a clear disadvantage compared to how things previously worked.