Can seller issue refund when payment is in 21 day hold?

[OrtizResale]

Hi. I did a search but couldn't find any exact answers. I purchased an item through ebay...a expensive cell phone. After a few days I asked the seller to provide me with shipping numbers when available. It was only then that the seller informed me that they already sold the phone to some one else. No big deal except for the fact they did not inform me and did not issue a refund. I immediately opened a dispute with paypal. Seller responded saying that he never received the funds in his account and when he clicked the transaction to try and refund the money it gave him an "invalid transaction id" error.

So my question is can the seller refund payment if it is in "held" status and a dispute is open? My payment was funded by a credit card.

[profdata]

If the funds were held unde the 21 day hold police, the seller can still refund.

When a Paypal claim is filed and the dollar amount is around 100.00 or more paypal will freeze that amount in the sellers account if the funds are there.  If the funds arn't ther then the account goes negative.

The seller then answers the paypal claim.  In you case the seller would choose refund the buyer, since they don't have the phone to ship to you.

You did escalate the paypal dispute to a "CLAIM".  If not do it now.

[profdata]

If it's forthe blackberry, the funds were probably held by paypal since the seller has no selling history.

Make sure you escalate the dispute to a claim, now.  Once a didpute is filed you must escalate it with 20 days or it will "time out" in favor of the seller.

If the seller tells you, you must cancel the dispute/claim...DON'T.  Once a dispute/claim is closed it can't be reoppened.

[Largo]

Regarding the dispute issue: Does paypal automatically go in favor of the seller when the case isn't raised to a 'claim' within the 20 day windows? I'm in a dispute now (initiated by the buyer), but since I'm not %100 certain if the buyer is trying to scam me or not I don't necessarily want to take it to a claim.