Cheated out of sales tax on a refund again!

[donwiss]

eBay has again cheated me out of the sales tax on a shipping cost refund. You can read about the first time here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/eBay-glitch-cheats-us-on-sales-tax-when-seller-refund...

The story is basically the same. The lot had multiple items and I only want the seller to ship me one of them. And the seller agreed to reduce the shipping cost to be commensurate with it being one item shipped.

This time it was a buy-it-now. I spent over a day trying to get the seller to correct the shipping cost. Instead the seller wanted to issue a refund after I paid.

We agreed that shipping the one item would be $4.00. As you can see, the refund was placed below the total, so there was no refund of the associated sales tax. But eBay has the nerve to lie and claim the refund includes sales tax. How sleazy.

With this now happening to me twice, I would have to assume it has happened to thousands of others in NY state since last June 1st. And eBay has probably cheated tens of thousands of people in all the states it is required to collect sales tax in.

I hope that eBay is still remitting the non-refunded sales tax to the state, but they could be pocketing it.

Shame on you eBay.

[dtexley3]

Was the refund done through eBay managed payments or Paypal?

It actually makes a difference because of how the refund will be handled.

[donwiss]

I don't know. This is the refund e-mail (edited to remove personal info):

Subject: You have a refund from "Seller"
From: "service@paypal.com" <service@paypal.com>

Hello, "Buyer" "Seller" refunded $4.25 USD from your purchase on February 28, 2020. The money was refunded to your MASTER_CARD. It may take a few days to appear on your statement. Your refund summary Transaction ID: xxxx

February 28, 2020 14:04:19 PST

Total purchase amount $14.42 USD

Amount refunded $4.25 USD

Refund paid by "Seller" Refund paid to "Buyer." Note from "Seller": overage paid in shipping thanks again

[dtexley3]

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@donwiss wrote:

I don't know. This is the refund e-mail (edited to remove personal info):

Subject: You have a refund from "Seller"
From: "service@paypal.com" <service@paypal.com>

Hello, "Buyer" "Seller" refunded $4.25 USD from your purchase on February 28, 2020. The money was refunded to your MASTER_CARD. It may take a few days to appear on your statement. Your refund summary Transaction ID: xxxx

February 28, 2020 14:04:19 PST

Total purchase amount $14.42 USD

Amount refunded $4.25 USD

Refund paid by "Seller" Refund paid to "Buyer." Note from "Seller": overage paid in shipping thanks again

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The transaction was refunded in Paypal, not eBay. You and the buyer need to call Paypal and ask why their system did not attach a prorated sales tax amount to the refund.  The normal process on the Paypal side (and I've done this type of shipping refund several times) is that Paypal automatically increases the refund by the prorated sales tax refund and gets it from eBay.

Based on the message this is a Paypal issue.

[donwiss]

Thank you. The seller confirmed that he processed the refund through PayPal. How would he know otherwise? He's not involved with the sales tax collection.

I just posted in a PayPal forum.