Fixed Portion of Final Value Fee not refunded to seller, buyer provided a bad address.

[valkseller]

I am the seller.  A buyer bought an item from me and provided this shipping address:

2-1-4.3 N.wW .79- AveE. SP-0003638, miami, FL 33122

There is no such street address, a shipping label can not be produced.   Do a google map search on that street address, it can not be found.

Before I had a chance to contact the buyer the buyer sent a message within minutes of buying the item saying that they want me to ship the item to a California address.  This would cost $7.00 more than they paid for calculated shipping to Miami FL 33122.

I called ebay customer service, spoke to representative David.  We discussed the issue and agreed that I should cancel the order based an an issue with the shipping address.  I asked ebay rep David about the final value fees including the $0.30 fixed fee.  David told me all fees would be refunded, so I canceled the order for a bad shipping address.

I got a notice that the cancelation was complete, but my bank account was charged the fixed fee of $0.30.  I called ebay again and spoke to Vania who told me yes it is not my fault that the buyer did this to me, yes it is not fair, but the fixed fee is taken from the seller.  She claimed paypal did the same thing.  That is not true, I have had this happen at least 2 or 3 times during the 20 years I have been selling on ebay, and paypal never took the fixed fee when the issue was a bad shipping address.

[shipscript]

Regardless of what PayPal has, or has not, done in the past, eBay does not refund the 30 cent processing fee.   Additionally (aside from a short hiatus for covid) PayPal no longer refunds the processing fee on refunds and cancellations, whereas eBay does. 

[valkseller]

Well it sure isn't fair.  The buyer intentionally provided an incomprehensible street address in Florida that made it impossible to produce a shipping label from.  Within 4 minutes of the purchase time, before I even  noticed the sale, the buyer sent a message directing me to send that item to a California address.  The obvious intentionality is that the original transaction details with the Florida address shows a California land line phone number.   I pointed all this out to the ebay rep.  When I asked the ebay rep where to ship it to without incurring any unfair additional shipping charges he looked at the Florida address and laughed agreeing that it is not a valid street address.  That is when we both agreed that the buyer is trying to pull a scam and said that I should cancel the order based on shipping address issues.  The ebay rep never suggested that I contact the buyer for a correct Florida shipping address. The addressee names on the Florida address didn't even match the name on the California address.  The ebay rep told me I would get all FVF fees back.  I even asked about the fixed portion $0.30.  He put me on hold for several minutes, came back and said yes, I will get all the FVF fees back including the fixed portion.

The buyer did this to get a cheaper calculated shipping charge.  It would have cost me $7.00 more to ship to California, and from what I gathered from the first ebay rep, if I would have shipped to the California address instead of the incomprehensible Florida address I might not be covered by seller protection. 

I sent a message to the buyer letting them know I won't ship to California at my expense and would refund their money.  They did not reply or give an explanation for the incomprehensible Florida shipping address in the order details, so I sent a refund.

The only reason I brought paypal into this discussion is because the ebay rep said that paypal did the same thing.  Ebay brought it up not me.   I am sorry, but both you and ebay are wrong about that.  If you appeal the fixed portion of the paypal fee and can demonstrate that the buyer provided a bad shipping address they always refunded the whole amount including fixed portion.  I was with paypal until recently when ebay forced me into MP, I know what I'm talking about, I've been doing this for 20 years.  I had a similar paypal transaction just before I got forced into MP, the paypal transaction showed three different names, one from ebay, a different one from who the payment was coming from, and  third different one on the shipping address.  The payee and addressee shipping addresses did not match.  Paypal told me not to ship, and refunded everything including the fixed portion.  I had been previously burnt twice with credit card bank charge backs for unauthorized use of a credit card, where the payee's name and address did not match the ship to name and address.  Both ebay and paypal had allowed these fraudulent transaction to go through.  It was a paypal rep that taught me how to recognize these potential scams.

What I don't understand, is that if the ebay shipping label system can recognize a bad address, why does ebay allow buyers to use their platform with the same bad shipping address.  They would not let a seller get away with providing fraudulent information.