eBay using my future sales to cover a refund for an order I was never paid for
Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone from the community or eBay can help clarify this, because it doesn’t seem right.
I had a buyer return an item and I issued a refund. The problem is I was never paid out for that order in the first place — the buyer’s payment was on hold and never reached my bank or available balance.
After the refund, my available funds went negative. Now, whenever I make a new sale and the money becomes available for payout, eBay automatically applies 100% of that money to the negative balance, leaving me with $0 from the sale.
So effectively:
I lost the item
I never received the original payment
My future sales are being taken to cover the refund
I end up losing both the item and the money
I understand that eBay refunds come from the seller balance, but I don’t understand how I can be charged for a refund when the original funds were never paid out to me at all.
Has anyone experienced this?
Is this a payments accounting error?
How do I get eBay to do a payment reconciliation so they can show where (or if) I was ever credited for the original buyer’s payment?
Any advice on how to escalate this properly with eBay Payments would really help.
Thanks in advance.
mtgraves7984
·8 months ago"I had a buyer return an item and I issued a refund."
"I end up losing both the item and the money"
@mokisz
^^ It can't be both. If your buyer returned your item, you didn't lose your item. (You have the item back.) If you refunded a payment, you didn't lose money. (You gave back what the buyer gave you.) The only thing you may have lost is FVFs and extra shipping dollars, no?
stuff4divas
·8 months ago@mokisz u said the buyer returned the item, so they were owed the refund, so now u have to pay for that refund since ebay fronted the money for u
christworks
·8 months ago@mokisz No, you are not understanding.
Do you keep a spreadsheet of your orders so you know when the funds from orders are received by your bank? Held funds do not magically disappear.
When you have a negative balance, indeed, funds from future sales will apply to that negative balance until it is paid off. You've not "lost" anything. eBay automatically applies your funds to pay off the debt you owe them. You can pay off that negative balance using your bank card. That will bring you back to $0 and your account will once again fill up as you make sales.
mokisz
OP8 months agono, you don’t understand. If you go to the payouts section and you click on a payout it tells you what the payout is for. And I did not receive a payout for that order.
soh.maryl
·8 months agoIf you were not paid for an order by a buyer, did you not cancel the order, citing "buyer did not pay" as the reason?
participatrophy
·8 months ago@mokisz
Check here OP
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/getting-paid/getting-paid-items-youve-sold/payments-hold?id=4816
wastingtime101
·8 months agoThe funds don't just vanish @mokisz .
- Buyer purchases item.
- eBay holds funds.
- Buyer returns item.
- If original funds are still on hold, seller fronts money for refund, then original funds are released after seller refunds. It all evens out.
- If original funds were released before the return, then seller was paid and then has to return the funds upon return. It all evens out.
So either you got the payout before the return, or the funds were released after.
If eBay CS told you the funds were paid out, then they probably were.
I suggest reviewing your transaction history and payout history in detail. If you still have questions, come back and post screenshots.
Go here: https://www.ebay.com/mes/transactionlist?sh=true
mokisz
OP8 months agothey weren’t paid out. The payout was for other items I check things out every day and that money I received where from other items I sold.
wastingtime101
·8 months agoGo here @mokisz : https://www.ebay.com/mes/transactionlist?sh=true
Find the order. Not the refund, the original order.
Click view details.
Post a screenshot of this section of the details page.
roccotacodad54
·8 months agoTwo words will solve this problem in the future--->Working Capital....................
itsjustasprain
·8 months agoBuyer funds passing through the Managed Payments go in one direction only - from buyer to seller. A refund sent to the buyer before the original payment has cleared has to come from the seller - either from his current balance of available funds or from his bank account if there are no funds currently available.
Although the buyer refund has apparently been taken from your bank account the original payment WILL eventually go through. The hold is not indefinite - especially if the buyer has already been made whole through refunding.
You are not losing both the item and the money. (In fact you said in your post that the buyer returned it already...?) When a buyer files a return request you can always ask for it to be returned before refunding.
mokisz
OP8 months agoread it again please. I am losing both the item and the money because, I get a returned item, I issue a refund, but my available funds are negative even tho I never got a payout for the returned item to begin with, the next time I sell an item guess what happens? The money from the item I sold after the refund goes to the negative available funds and I lose both the item and the money 🙂
kibble-net
·8 months agoOnce the hold is removed, the funds are moved into your available balance.
Double check your payment history. It is likely that your account is still negative because you are on the hook for shipping, as well as final value fees if ebay had to step in and issue a refund on your behalf. But the original payment doesn't magically disappear.
Without seeing your payment history it's impossible to prove anything one way or the other.
mokisz
OP8 months agookay, i’ll explain again: I issue refund, negative available funds, I sell an item, the money from the item goes to the negative available funds from the refund, i get no money and lose the item. Never received payout for the refund I sent.
tobaccocardyahoo
·8 months agoDoes the hold still exist? Holds usually remain held for a month.
mokisz
OP8 months agono, the hold doesn’t exist anymore. I called ebay customer service and what they told me is that I had to repay it from future sales because I had already gotten the payout from the order (before it was delivered supposedly) but it’s a lie because it is well known that everyone has to wait 3 days to get their funds and the payout i received were from different sales.