Big delays in refunding customers, what gives?

[sin-n-dex]

So yesterday I posted that I was cancelling a transaction and it took over 5 hours for the cancellation to go through (eBay sends me a notification when it's been successfully cancelled, and another notification comes saying the item has been listed again).

Today I got a message from an unhappy customer with a damaged item. I apologized and told him I'd refund him "right away". Well that was an hour ago, and I initiated the refund, which normally takes 10-15 minutes (I do shipping refunds all the time... it doesn't take this long). So he's wondering where his money is and what happened to this "right away" that I promised a refund.

How a person handles an unhappy buyer can make the difference between bad feedback and none/good feedback. The buyer is leaving their impression of their experience of the transaction. Getting a damaged item sucks and I need to do everything I can to make this right with the buyer. But eBay's big delays that they started having (and telling me on the phone it will take 24 hours for him to get his money back) is not acceptable and it will be their fault if he leaves bad feedback along the lines of "promised immediate refund but I had to wait a whole day to receive it."

I messaged him after 30 minutes when I realized it was taking way too long to tell him what time I did it and said their system might be a bit slow to process. In Seller Hub it says completed, but I have not gotten the "a buyer has been refunded" email that comes to me when he gets his "you have received a refund" email.

I don't have things go south very often in my store, but when I do I like to be empowered to fix them in a way that the customer finds acceptable. Making customers wait a long time to be refunded when previously it was a 10 minute thing, is not acceptable.

C.

[onlinecentral]

The buyer's probable expectation was to receive a response within 24 hours, except for weekends.

The sequence of events should have been.
a) Refund requested by buyer.
b) Refund acknowledgement sent by eBay and received by buyer.
c) Refund acknowledgement sent by eBay and received by seller.
D) Apology message from seller sent to buyer.

A better way for you to have handled this would have been to initiate the refund. Then wait for some action or progress from eBay before sending the buyer a message.

[fab_finds4u]

How do you plan on making them send it sooner?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Interesting, I sent 5 shipping refunds yesterday & they were all back to 2 minute refunds, just like usual (& I was one of the ones that had one take all day, the day before).   

I'm going to start telling buyers 24 hours, just to be safe.  

[inhawaii]

Hey C,

Mine go through usually within the hour.

[sin-n-dex]

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@inhawaii wrote:

Hey C,

Mine go through usually within the hour.

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Two Hours plus right now... I don't get how this whole system works, but when I did the cancel yesterday, the CSR seemed to indicate the refund part was done, the customer just wasn't notified.

The customer said I did a bad job packing, which suggests to me that I'm at fault, not the post office. So I would like to see him get his refund right away. I've already apologized.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

Interesting, I sent 5 shipping refunds yesterday & they were all back to 2 minute refunds, just like usual (& I was one of the ones that had one take all day, the day before).   

I'm going to start telling buyers 24 hours, just to be safe.  

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I like @onlinecentral 's process for dealing with refunds of this nature. It's not common that I refund anyone for anything except for some postage. I wonder if the reason for the refund will determine how quickly it goes through. I put mine through as INAD refunds because the items arrived damaged (one package - two orders).

When I do partial refunds that are just shipping money, those usually take only 5 minutes or so... I often just send them and forget about them, so if they take longer I don't seem to notice. I put the note to the customer with the refund (for postage refunds), so there's no need to contact them separately and say anything, it's all in the refund transaction.

C.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

IDK.  All of my refunds normally just take the 5 minutes, up until the other day, when there was the Ebay problem.  Could be a new process on their part, who knows.  I figured it was fixed, since all of mine yesterday were back to normal, but it could be they've changed processing depending on what kind of refund.  

So annoying that they moved your post, since all the other discussions about this are on the Seller Board LOL. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

IDK.  All of my refunds normally just take the 5 minutes, up until the other day, when there was the Ebay problem.  Could be a new process on their part, who knows.  I figured it was fixed, since all of mine yesterday were back to normal, but it could be they've changed processing depending on what kind of refund.  

So annoying that they moved your post, since all the other discussions about this are on the Seller Board LOL. 

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It's OK, I found my post. 🙂

Yeah, I'm wondering if the reason requires more processing... like a partial refund might not require much verification.

The CSR I spoke to about the cancellation that took 5 hours (in the end) that it was just their system processing it.

Thing is, the second refund I sent went through (maybe half an hour ago), the first one I sent which was a minute or two earlier is still MIA... and we're at 2hrs 45 min now.

C.