Buyer doesn't exist but I have to refund them twice

[merceemay]

I sold a James Avery Margarita Cross charm. It hadn't been with her long and she started a refund/return. It was so small and it wasn't shiny, was the excuse. To me, they know nothing about sterling OR James Avery.  So ebay put a negative on my account. I'm assuming they refunded her 2 days before I got the charm back, which is awful.  So I went to block her from bidding on my stuff and she doesn't exist on ebay.  Ok, in the meantime I sold something else, so they took that money to put me back in the black. I got the item back today and now they want me to refund her. A person that doesn't exist. I can't believe it! I left ebay a while back because they took money from paypal for nothing and double charged me for something. Do they just do this a lot or what is going on??  Wow!

Thank you, needed to get that out.  lol

Lynn/merceemay if you want to check or anything.

[dbfolks166mt]

Unusual for eBay to refund the buyer before you received the item back. I do know they are lightning fast about doing this once the seller has receive the item but not before. Given the person no longer exists it may have something do do with their account either being closed or removed. You may need eBay customer support on this one. Overall things do not work as smooth as they used to years ago and even less so with COVID and the reduced support. 

[merceemay]

Ebay won't call me back. They say they tried and I didn't answer, with my phone right here. But I assure you, they had a negative on my paypal account, by the right amount, before I even read my message about it. Then when I got paid for something on the 1st, they took that money, and I just got the item today. Now they are telling me to refund her.

[dbfolks166mt]

Try contacting them through a chat session or on social media those seem to be working the best these days. Phone support is non-existent at the moment. 

[kensgiftshop]

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@merceemay 

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Ebay hasn't refunded the buyer yet, they just put a hold on the funds so they'll be there when it time to refund.

Now that you have the item back, go to the case and click the refund button to refund the buyer.

If the buyer is no longer on Ebay, the refund will still go to their payment source.

[femmefan1946]

You sold a charm.

The buyer opened a Not As Described dispute.

I'm guessing you did not send a Return Shipping Label and eBay paid for the return shipping.

She returned the charm and you got the charm back.

I'm assuming they refunded her 2 days before

Possibly, or this may have been the cost of the Return Shipping Label eBay had sent.

and she doesn't exist on ebay.

Do you mean she is Not A Registered User? Or that she no longer is active although her account exists.

so they took that money

Which might be the actual refund forced by eBay or it might be the Return Shipping.

Basically, you can refuse Returns but you cannot refuse Refunds.

If the buyer chooses Not As Described, and most will, the seller can allow the buyer to keep the item or she can demand Return, even if she has a No Returns policy.

In this case, the buyer and eBay (and you?) agreed that the charm was unwanted and you were charged with the cost of the shipping label.

Then when the item showed as being back with you, you were charged with the refund.

I'm not sure whether a seller who does not send the Return Shipping and the Refund voluntarily gets one Defect or Two.

To figure out what happened, look at the cost of return shipping and at the original payment. You should be able to match them to your original shipping cost and to the original payment. Note that eBay may have chosen a more expensive shipping service than you used to ship.

Unless your description specifically said that the charm has a satin finish, you can't assume that the buyer will know that nor that she will like it.  Most Disputes are more like differences of opinion and that is what this one sounds like.

It's not personal, it's business.

If you want to refund the buyer, before eBay forces the refund,  but cannot find her, you may have a typo in her name. My own bugaboo is underlining (_) which I constantly mistake for hyphens(-).  Or one and  small letter L.