Randomly Received a Small Refund

[alittlespark]

A few hours ago, I received a tiny refund for a purchase I made back in May 2023. Here's the thing - I did not request for a refund. The refund is less than a dollar. Should I be suspicious of something here? Should I contact the seller? It feels completely out of left field.

[ebooksdiva]

It is odd. Never heard that one before. Maybe it’s a ploy to get you to come back and buy more. 

[albertabrightalberta]

How do you know which seller it's from? A listing from May 2023 can't be retrieved. I'm not sure it's possible for a seller to issue a refund from a 6-month old order. 

Was there any note included in the refund? 

[scholtenj]

I have been having the same thing happen. I have already received a refund for an item, but a couple weeks later a 34 cent, or 56 cent, or 22 cent pops up. I use PayPal to pay. Does that have anything to do with it? 

[alittlespark]

When I got the email from eBay, it included the order number. I checked my purchases with said number and the item it matched with was bought back in May. There wasn't a note. If it is not possible for the seller to issue a refund for such an old order, then I guess eBay just did this randomly? Strange all around.

[alittlespark]

I am not too sure? I did use PayPal to pay, but I never requested a refund for this item. Honestly, I have yet to ever request a refund, hence why this is so strange to me.

[alittlespark]

Heh, that would be a unique ploy! But the seller does not have any items for sale at this time.

[penguins_dont_fly]

It isn't even possible for a seller to issue a refund on a sale that is over 90 days old (through eBay, anyway) and all sellers are in Managed Payments now, there is no PayPal connection at all for eBay orders on the Seller side.

If I had to guess, I would say it was a Sales Tax refund ... eBay miscalculated something and is now issuing refunds.

Just a guess.

[alittlespark]

Your guess makes sense to me! Thank you for giving me more insight! Truly, I appreciate you and the others who've taken the time to answer my question with your knowledge and expertise. 😄

[xtack14]

I've gotten about three or four of these in the last week.  From what I can figure, the refund seems to correspond with the tax I was charged on the shipping amount.   Haven't heard anything official though.

[lionshead62]

I am getting LOTS of those too.  I do NOT click the "get in touch" link.  If something seems fishy .... 

[valueaddedresource]

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@penguins_dont_fly wrote:

It isn't even possible for a seller to issue a refund on a sale that is over 90 days old (through eBay, anyway) and all sellers are in Managed Payments now, there is no PayPal connection at all for eBay orders on the Seller side.

If I had to guess, I would say it was a Sales Tax refund ... eBay miscalculated something and is now issuing refunds.

Just a guess.

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@penguins_dont_fly that was my first thought as well and seems like the most logical explanation.

devon@ebay kyle@ebay elizabeth@ebay can you look into this for us please? I understand you can't provide account specific information, but could you check with the tax department for any general information you could share or to confirm if there has been a situation that may have triggered automatic refunds of tax overpayments?

[12345jamesstamps]

Oh my!

I give refunds to my International buyers all the time for combined shipping because they can't add all their items in the shopping cart. And a lot of these never ask for a refund of combined shipping. Its just the right thing to do. 

[kalyoth]

I have been receiving postage refunds from USPS for overcharges. Might it be that? I round up in ounces & sometimes it bumps into larger class.

[lacemaker3]

From what I can see, two of the people on this thread who reported this has happened to them are active sellers, and looking at their listings, both are in Michigan.

Michigan recently changed the sales tax law. They used to charge sales tax on shipping, now they don't. I guess eBay was a bit late implementing the change, so they apparently collected sales tax on shipping when they shouldn't have, for some transactions.