Info help with a refund to a buyer

[Seriesii]

Hi all can someone please help me a little..I had a case opened for a refund so I was spoke to the buyer and we agreed to refund even though my item fit his product..he accepted my refund and now in paypal it says pending for 3 days and the 300 has come out if my account..how do refunds work..Will my money stay in pending status in pay pal until he sends back my item and proof of sending? Or will be receive his refund before I receive my item back. I ask this as I think he may be scamming me as my item he wants to refund is for sale on Gumtree and he will not reply to me for 3 days now..thank you for any help

[sharpiemarker]

@Seriesii 

The refund is coming from your bank account, right? If so, then yes, it will be pending for some days until it clears and reaches PayPal.

In regards to returning of the item, did you request that of the buyer as the terms for giving a refund in the dispute? If not, then you're just refunding the buyer without a return required. If you both agree on refund upon return in the dispute, then don't issue a refund until you get the item back. If buyer refuses to or has not to return item within 20 days of opening dispute, you can escalate within those 20 days for PayPal to step in and review your case and ask the buyer to provide tracking number as proof of return delivery.

How did you issue a refund? Did you issue a refund from within the dispute like this:

How do I issue a refund for a PayPal dispute?

If you did and the case was not escalated then you refunded without a return. It didn't seem like a return was part of the deal. You just refunded.

If you just refunded by going into the original transaction like this:

How do I issue a refund?

Then do not expect a return to happen because you sent refund already.

So it all depends what you did exactly.