Negative balance caused by buyers not using ebay correctly

[Jaynepeters]

A buyer who,is not happy with an item has gone to ebay without contacting me first, this has put a negative balance on my paypal account which is linked to my bank!! I am not happy about this as I have agreed to,refund when I receive item back. It is stopping me making purchase so ebay and PayPal could lose out if sellers are impatient. Why is this happening??

[kernowlass]

When a dispute is filed paypal always freeze the funds if there are any in the sellers paypal balance.

This is because paypal only have 2 ways of getting funds from a seller > either from there paypal balance or putting their account into negative and hope they pay them back again to get their account unlimited.

So in case a seller refuses to refund they freeze any funds so they don't have to refund the buyer out of their own pocket as it were.

[Jaynepeters]

If my bank card is linked why don't they just take the money as they would if I was purchasing something and there was no money in my paypal,account? Also they should not allow buyers to do this! What if I don't receive the item back? Buyers should use the correct procedure and contact seller first, then if they get no joy contact ebay. If my buyer had used this I would be able to buy my items. It takes longer to transfer money into PayPal account than it takes paypal to take money when they want to!!!

[kernowlass]

Thats the point, they CAN'T take it from any funding source linked to your paypal account as that would be done without your authorisation and paypal can only take payments once you authorise them.

If the buyer has filed for item received but not as described then they have to return the item trackable to you at their own expense and prove delivery with that tracking number BEFORE they get a refund.

A lot of buyers think that raising a dispute is the correct procedure, if you click "resolve a problem" it states to use the dispute part to resolve things with the seller BEFORE they escalate it to the claim.

I've had buyers that were amazed that I said I was happy to refund  them without them having to open a dispute for a lost item.

If you click on the add funds tab there are 2 ways to add money and 1 of them is pretty instant.