Cancellation/Refund pending/confirmation... please help

[tolkienbooks]

Hello,

A buyer cancelled his order with me after he paid.  I cancelled the order and refunded his money.  Now the refund is 'pending' and says " waiting for the buyer to confirm they received a refund for this order."  But the buyer doesn't know how to do this and I don't know either.  Can someone please help me with simple instructions that I can pass along to him?  I can tell he's not familiar with ebay/computers, so the simpler the better.  Thanks so much in advance!

[beyondfab]

I wouldn't do anything.

[tolkienbooks]

The refund says it's pending his confirmation.  I'm worried that if he doesn't confirm, I'll lose my final value fee.

[katecntr55]

You won't lose the fee, but youll have to be patient.

I've had buyers ask to cancel before they paid. So I cancel, and let them know the ball is in their court and they have to accept the cancellation somehow. I'm not sure what it is, Ebay said it would be something they could click on in their purchase history. I've had two of these in the last two months, and the buyer never did whatever it was that would settle the cancellation, so I had to wait until it cancelled automatically. This took two weeks the most recent time.

[brad62853]

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voodoomailman wrote:

Hello,

A buyer cancelled his order with me after he paid.  I cancelled the order and refunded his money.  Now the refund is 'pending' and says " waiting for the buyer to confirm they received a refund for this order."  But the buyer doesn't know how to do this and I don't know either.  Can someone please help me with simple instructions that I can pass along to him?  I can tell he's not familiar with ebay/computers, so the simpler the better.  Thanks so much in advance!

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To clarify. You're saying that you buyer sent you an eBay message stating they would like to cancel their order? If so, then you sent a cancellation request to the buyer which you're awaiting their confirmation on. What reason did the buyer state in their message for wanting to cancel the order AND what reason did you select when sending the buyer the cancellation request? 

[tolkienbooks]

I was selling an old ipod.   The buyer (after he paid) messaged me to say that he found his old ipod in his jacket pocket and wanted to cancel the order.  I agreed (what choice do I have?) and used the "The buyer asked to cancel the order, or there's an issue with the buyer's address" option.

[katecntr55]

I wish ebay would make "buyer changed mind" and "problem with address" two separate choices. Then they could track how often some buyers change their mind. I really don't think buyers should have so long to OK the cancellation when they're the ones who wanted it. Your stuff sits in limbo until the cancellation closes.

[slippinjimmy]

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@katecntr55 wrote:

I wish ebay would make "buyer changed mind" and "problem with address" two separate choices. Then they could track how often some buyers change their mind. I really don't think buyers should have so long to OK the cancellation when they're the ones who wanted it. Your stuff sits in limbo until the cancellation closes.

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Why does your stuff have to sit in limbo? If a buyer asks to cancel there is no need to wait to relist, it's not the same as opening a UPI where they still might pay.

[fern*wood]

Whenever I had a situation like this, and I used the cancel option, it was a one step procedure that refunded the buyer and cancelled without any response needed by the buyer.  Possibly it depends on the method the buyer used to pay, but I received a message within minutes that the process was complete and no further action was needed.

The only time I've had to wait was if the buyer asked to cancel but had not paid.  I was under the impression that nothing is sent to buyers now to approve a cancellation, but if no payment was made through paypal where they could see it had been refunded, ebay will ask a buyer if they received a refund. That is why it takes longer if they didn't pay.

[tolkienbooks]

Here's what I'm seeing that's bugging me.  

[katecntr55]

That's the situation I had. Both times the buyer didn't pay before asking to cancel, and they didn't bother to confirm the cancellation. I didn't want to relist the item in case the buyer changed his mind (again) and decided to pay for it. He bid and won. By agreeing to cancel, I'm sort of doing him a favor (really protecting myself from a retaliatory SNAD),so why can't he return the favor and confirm the cancellation? It was two weeks before ebay closed the cancellation.

Whatever happened to "a bid is a contract to buy"?????

[kaelykat]

Have him check his messages on eBay. I once had a seller message to tell me he was out of stock and was cancelling my order after I had paid. I saw no reason to be mean about it and I agreed. He refunded my money through paypal and that was that. Have your customer check his paypal account to see if the refund is there.

[fern*wood]

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@voodoomailman wrote:

Here's what I'm seeing that's bugging me.  

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Did you cancel using the one step process where the refund went through immediately?  When I did this the paid dollar sign showed a symbol by it that represented the refund was processed.  I don't see that on your screen shot.  Are you sure the refund was processed?

[tolkienbooks]

When I click on 'See cancel details' I have this message....

[tolkienbooks · Accepted solution]

So, for anyone interested... I finally had a chance to call Ebay and ask about this.  They told me that Paypal is just taking a while to issue the refund and that when they do, the buyer will get an email asking him to confirm.  If he doesn't, then the transaction will automatically be cancelled after 10 days from when I issued the refund and I will be credited the final value fee at that time.

Thanks so much everyone for all your help and advice, very much appreciated!