I sold an item back at the end of February. I kept an eye on the tracking and noticed that the item went out for delivery on two different days and was returned back to the post office for insufficient address. I saw that on March 1 that the post office had identified the package to be returned to the sender. At this point I had reached out to the buyer hoping to have him get to his post office to claim his package before it was returned. He was unable to manage that and on Saturday, March 4 the package was delivered back to me. I had also reached out to him a second time on March 3 asking him if he had made any progress with his local post office and he provided a rather discombobulated response that seem to indicate that he had this problem with another recent purchase. As it turns out the address he provided was for his mobile home community and he failed to include his lot number in the address he provided in his eBay profile. Hence, the postal service could not manage to deliver his packages.
Fast forward to yesterday, March 6 and I reach out to eBay customer service asking how to best handle the situation. They really had very little insight in to how best proceed. I did ask if I could reach out to the buyer and see if he could pay for the postage via my PayPal account and I could in turn try re-shipping his item with a revised address, including the lot number for his mobile home. The eBay customer service rep seemed to feel that this an acceptable resolution to the issue, so I got the go ahead to reach out once again to the buyer to see if we could move forward with him sending me funds to re-mail him his item.
No sooner do I finish sending a message to the buyer outlining my proposed solution, do I receive a notification from eBay that the buyer has "opened a request" and has stated that his item was not delivered and he is requesting a full refund (including of course the money paid for the shipping to his incomplete address). I did respond to the buyer saying that I would be happy to refund him the purchase price of the item, but because I was already out the money paid for the shipping, I was not willing to refund him the full amount he paid. I feel this would be an easy resolution to his problem, but sadly eBay's policy in the "request" process doesn't allow for this type of partial refund. It seems eBay only gives me the option to refund the entire amount including the shipping costs?
In my response to his "request" I did once again offer the additional option of him sending me the funds to re-mail him the package to the correct address, in addition to outlining why I was unwilling to give him a full refund including the shipping cost.
A day later, and still I have not gotten a response from the buyer. At this point he has received three messages in reference to resolving the issue all of which were very cordial. Still nary a response. I am concerned that because of eBay's poor policies and ineffective dispute resolution, I will be stuck eating the shipping and they will refund the purchaser his full amount paid for the item since "the item was never delivered," not taking into account it was the buyer's ineptitude that caused the item to be undeliverable.
Wondering if anyone else in the community has experienced something similar and what sort of resolution was reached.
Thanks in advance for your insight and help.
Inceptions
