Why was this fee charged?

[JoeDetr]

I refunded a sale within the US. The customer emailed me and phoned me asking for a refund for goods purchased on my website using Paypal. I refunded her in about 3 hours of the sale. I was left with a charge from PayPal for $14.45. I have refunded money before without a fee. Why was this fee charged?

[sharpiemarker]

@JoeDetr 

It’s the difference in fees. PayPal does not refund the fees you originally paid.

How do I issue a refund? - PayPal

”You won’t pay any fees to refund a payment for goods or services, but we won’t return the fees you originally paid as the seller.”

[JoeDetr · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the reply. 

When did this policy change?  I have refunded my customers many times either by them making a mistake in ordering or if they had second thoughts.  I now have to charge them a fee if they make a mistake?  This makes PayPal not customer friendly to my customers.  When did this policy change?  I can understand if this was an international order and there was some third party that had fees that PayPal needed to pay but internal fees to PayPal  still charging reversal fees make it harder to do business i.e. make my customer eat charges for a simple mistake.  I now just paid over $14.00 for a customer that made a mistake.  Again, when did this policy change?

”You won’t pay any fees to refund a payment for goods or services, but we won’t return the fees you originally paid as the seller.”  I assumed this meant PayPal's external third party costs.  So I now have to charge my customers for mistakes?  Not business friendly.

Sorry for the rant,  I know its not you, just felt let down by my business partner of more than 15 years.  

Thanks again for your reply!