How the eBay customer support refund process works
29/09/2009 at 10:26
A recent purchase went badly wrong, with the seller who had been trading regularly for a year going from 100% feedback on the day I made the purchase to 86.5% and NARU (Not A Registered User) five days later.
I received the email from eBay’s Loss Prevention Department informing me that the listing had been removed and went to start the chargeback process from within PayPal. As the listing had disappeared from My eBay I thought PayPal was my only option, but I was given the choice to participate in eBay’s trial resolution service by telephone.
As soon as I explained that the seller was NARU they put me on hold for a minute while they checked, and instantly came back to offer an eBay funded refund. The only snag was that instead of refunding to my PayPal email address they will only send the funds to your eBay registered email.
It’s not a huge problem, it’s the work of 30 seconds to add an additional email address to a PayPal account, but as a seller I already have several attached and there’s a limit to how many you can add (seven if I recall correctly).
Overall it’s a great improvement over the PayPal chargeback process and I’d recommend any buyers offered the service take up the option of dealing with eBay rather than PayPal. In my case it was only £4.98, but knowing eBay will underwrite a transaction does nothing but add confidence in trading on the site. The one and only improvement would be for them to refund to the email address I made the original PayPal payment from rather than the one registered on my eBay account.
board_surfer says
12:14 pm on 29/09/2009
What did they take as proof you had’nt got your item?
Chris Dawson says
12:15 pm on September 29th, 2009
The fact the guy was NARU.
To be honest it didn’t occur to me that they might not believe I didn’t have the item, but seeing as the seller had attracted 28 negs in five days from others that hadn’t received their items I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that I was telling the truth.
Patty says
4:02 pm on 29/09/2009
Had a similair thing happen to me as the seller.
Customer bought a laptop and claimed it was faulty. We asked them what was wrong with it but that was the last thing we heard from the customer and they never even opened a paypal dispute.
We then got a nice negative from the customer informing us that ebay had refunded the payment yet they still had the laptop and we still had the paypal funds.
board_surfer says
5:35 pm on September 29th, 2009
well that is just stupid
you would think that they would at least make the guy go through the return flow and give the seller an opportunity to rectify the situation
Im sure there is advice on the site that says contact your seller in the first instance, would be nice if ebay practiced what they preached.
I am not keen on this seemingly arbitrary refunding of buyers.
Patty says
10:34 pm on September 29th, 2009
Yep its certainly a strange one. I even mailed the customer after the feedback to find out what was going on and they more or less told me to go away as they had been refunded and didnt care anymore.
Best bit was that ebay then removed the negative feedback from our account because they mentioned an Ebay case on the feedback left which went against one of their feedback policies.
Sue Bailey says
10:59 am on September 30th, 2009
Patty, I wouldn’t absolutely assume you’ve heard the last of this. It’s not at all clear how the “eBay recouping the money from the seller” part of things is going to work – remember that new UA with the “we can help ourselves to your PayPal account” clause? I think it’s entirely possible that later down the line, they might just do that.
Still, if eBay get to see what it’s like with buyers who think eBay is a nice source of free goods, maybe something will get done about that small but horrid minority.
John Pemberton says
5:22 pm on 29/09/2009
I send everything tracked – its the only way. There will be buyers who will use it as a way of getting stuff for free. I guess ebay will have a ceiling of where they give instant refunds…what that is, who knows.
Jk says
10:50 am on 30/09/2009
This is a rather lame example of the new process and just shows how easy it is for a buyers to scam
tamebay – get up some serious news and stop putting up crap
Sue Bailey says
10:56 am on September 30th, 2009
Chris, we must stop holding a gun to JK’s head and forcing him to read our blog.
Chris Dawson says
11:11 am on September 30th, 2009
Oops, do we still have compulsory readership?
I thought we agreed to scrap that 
AM says
7:17 pm on 30/09/2009
Why think this isnt serious, JK?
Whatever you think to ebay’s new rules and refunds surely its better to know whats going on?
Im grateful, worried and spooked but grateful.
I only send things signed for too and subsidise it as no one would pay the full amount, IMHO.
Though i consider myself a good seller and had a buyer request a refund before contacting me at all.
The reason for the refund request was found Mascara didnt suit me.
Im sorry i said i would refund the buyer which i will when returned but i am sure Sue knows that Mascara can be perfect but just not suit~?
It worries me, as i havnt recieved the item back even though i said i would refund her as per ebay rules.
Chris advised me that i have to do this (sorry Chris i am not having a go, i was grateful for someone making sense of it) but i wouldn’t ask for or expect a refund if a cleanser that i used didn’t suit my skin.
I feel sellers now are paying for the way past awful sellers treated buyers on ebay.
I pay tax, duty etc and all fees i should and put most of my time into ebay and making buyers happy. As i am not a born sales person and feel better by being really honest about what i sell. Yet i still have to refund some one for not liking the product. Its like a Nanny state.
I’m top rated and on edge that i will lose the badge or that a competitor will buy and leave me low DSR.
Guys am I Paranoid?
AM