Refunded Buyer Twice

[Mattiotic]

I refunded an irrate Buyer for an item not as described even though it was exactly as described out of good faith. But the problem I have is that the refund I did was via Paypal as no method had presented itself via eBay at the time. I refunded the Buyer for the item, the P&P and also the return P&P. I later get a message on eBay stating that the Buyer had opened a case against me and that I had to agree to a Refund, as i had already refunded him via Paypal i thought OK that'll be okay so hit the agree button only for the original sale price (item + P&P) to be refunded. So my Paypal statement shows +£55.01 -£61.36 & -£55.01. I've contacted the Buyer and he says that the £55.01 shows returned on his statement, but i don't have it on mine. Ebay said to contact Paypal, i have opened a case but it was just closed straight away as there doesn't seem to be a process in the Resolution Centre to cope with overpayment or overefund as this is, and the automated system said it could resolve a 'Not as Described' case. I have Escalated but I have had no response since 2nd August, apart from the Buyer saying that Paypal have taken £55.01 from his account since i opened a case with them, and hurled a bit of abuse at me, i have still not received the refund back. Please can you help?

Could this be glitch in the Paypal system?

Matt

[PayPal_lucy]

Hey there Mattiotic,

Welcome to the community.

From the sounds of it you send your buyer a payment instead of going through the refund link.

It also sounds like the buyer opened their case on eBay. When it comes to eBay cases we can’t see the information involved or make a decision on it. We can only move the funds once eBay inform us of the outcome of the case.

What was the outcome of the eBay case? If the funds were returned to your buyer along with the funds you sent through your PayPal account then your buyer would need to refund the payment you sent to your buyer using the send money tab instead of issuing a refund.

Let me know how this is going.

[Mattiotic]

Hi Lucy

Thanks for your reply and its positivity. To be honest the whole thing has been a total nightmare. I’ve been bounced back and forth between Paypal & eBay like a ping pong ball on email. Neither company could confirm or understand that I wanted them to acknowledge that I was correct in assuming that my account was owed a payment by my Buyer and got me to jump through various hoops to confirm my identity, each time i did i was then replied to by someone different and it all started again until serveral emails later they then started advising me to contact Customer Services by phone, both eBay & Paypal did this. Then once I resorted to phone calls to both ebay & Paypal I was given hope escalating up through the relevant departments with each person assuring me that they’d be able to resolve the problem for me and not to worry, only to be told at the last stage of each call that I’d have to contact the other (ebay or Paypal). Only the last two phone calls out of many did I manage to confirm with both companies that is was indeed out of pocket and that my Buyer owes me; finally they could see both eBay & Paypal transactions!!  The last glimmer of hope I had was from the guy at eBay who again was confident that the problem could be resolved by the end of the call, and confirmed that yes he could clearly see on my account that I had refunded the Buyer twice. He had to put me on hold to seek some further advice from above only to be told yet again that they could not help me further and I had to either go back to Paypal or contact the Buyer to resolve. As the Buyer is insistent that he has not been refunded twice, that route is not an option to me. He suggested I phone the Buyer to discuss, but I advised him that I did not feel this was safe for the following reason; I Googled the guy’s name and was able to confirm by checking his address that he has been to prison for manslaughter, ie he has killed someone. At this stage the eBay guy said in that case he could pass my case to their Trust & Safety department. This was all on 16th August, I’ve not heard anything back since. Are you able to contact them to see how my case it’s progressing, and assist if need be?

Many thanks

Matt