Charged REFUND COST?

[partfinds]

Buyer placed order than asked to cancel  so I did. I now see Ebay charged my bank $4.03. I went to check on transaction and the charge is listed as refund cost- WHAT? WHAT IS THAT? WHAT REFUND COST? FOR WHAT? Anyone saw anything like that? There is no explanation what refund cost is

[canadian_collections]

Is there a phone number to contact someone at eBay? They seem to be places extra fees on everything but this is absurd. Charging you $4 when you made no money and cost them NO MONEY… how is that legal? 

[ittybitnot]

@partfinds 

Your buyer PAID before asking to cancel?    If they did, eBay already removed from your incoming money their fees for the sale.  At that point, if you don't have enough available funds for the FULL refund to the buyer, I would presume eBay takes what is needed from your bank account.  

[albertabrightalberta]

Did you choose to promote the listing? 

[mybigsale]

@partfinds 

When you cancel an order, eBay refunds the buyer from your funds.

eBay will use your eBay available funds first. If you do not have sufficient available eBay funds, eBay will use your bank for the balance due. At time of refund, I believe eBay allows you to enter an alternate source of funds.

The 4.03 should be the amount eBay needed to refund your buyer after using your available funds.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

If ebay took that amount from you, wouldn't that number have a minus sign in front of it?

If you follow that line all the way to the right, it should say "View" at the end of the column. Click "view" and what does it tell you?

[partfinds]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques „

If ebay took that amount from you, wouldn't that number have a minus sign in front of it?

If you follow that line all the way to the right, it should say "View" at the end of the column. Click "view" and what does it tell you?”

exactly. They took that from my bank but booked that as I made 0 of the transaction while it should show negative.

when i click view it just opens new webpage with big number stating refund cost.Not only that but I checked other refunds I made before and they also have charge to my bank by unknown refund cost and it is not śmall- i have to look at them closer.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@partfinds @ittybitnot @mybigsale 

Ah, OK. I agree with @ittybitnot  and @mybigsale ...yes, they are charging your bank as the back up, because you didn't have enough funds in your ebay account to pay the full refund....In other words, if the refunded amount was $20, and you had $16 in your account, ebay took the 16 from your account and the 4 from your back up----the bank.

[ebooksdiva]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

If ebay took that amount from you, wouldn't that number have a minus sign in front of it?

If you follow that line all the way to the right, it should say "View" at the end of the column. Click "view" and what does it tell you?

---

No when funds are transfered from the sellers bank it is a bank transfer to pay for refunds or for store subscriptions and shipping labels when there's not enough available or pending funds. There wouldn't be a minus sign unless it comes out of the payment received from the buyer. 

On Feb 4 I didn't have enough to cover my store fee so eBay took the difference from my bank as accrued selling costs. Prior to that on Jan 12th I gave a refund for a cancelation and was short $1.08 eBay took that from my bank as well. 

There is no "view" for that.

[partfinds]

@mybigsale  you maybe right. I have to look. But definitely they changed something. But buyer paid x amount and I refunded that x amount and  I thought  Ebay was refunding from pending/processing (just like paying for shipping labels) and not from available funds plus bank- this is how it worked unless this was cancellation /refund processed way after they transferred money for that transaction to the account and you had no available funds.  They must have changed something? This was cancellation processed on the same day buyer paid.

I wouldn’t look if buyer didn’t reach out to me asking where his money is. Ebay collected his money and i refunded on the same day why are they withholding his funds? They shouldn’t be delaying it- transaction didn’t finalize. They messing payments now. People need to be vigiliant for some glitches.

[ebooksdiva · Accepted solution]

@partfinds 

If you click on the Cancel ID number it will tell you exactly what the $4.08 was for.

[aproudparent2010]

Looks to me as if maybe you didn't have enough money in your eBay account for the full refund so they took the balance from your back up source, your bank account

[sakic92710]

If you have the same situation again, when a buyer cancels after payment, just do as I do.  Tell the buyer you will give the refund once the money is available.  Then you will see if there is still a refund charge.  I do not refund until I have the money in my eBay balance.

[partfinds]

Ebay is messing stuff up on transaction view pages- I am unable to see / track stuff clearly- they are mixing other transcations when i click on the order nr.

so when you take a look at screenshot of refund for speedometer:

refund and order are listed as same numbers lets say 231

then ad fee and refund for ad fee is listed as same amount lets say it is 10 and them there is this refund cost in excess so it doesn’t balance.

and @mybigsale  had a point is seems that they changed how they processed refund not like before- at least for me (from processing funds but from available funds plus bank) however the transaction detail shows it as extra charge. They shouldn’t be showing it as separate additional charge- they made it confusing. Plus i don’t like how they don’t refund buyer from his paid and still processing funds.

the way they booking it - it will be difficult to track even for tax purpose. On other screenshot they input cost of refund when it was simply return label cost!

[monica-sells]

"...If you have the same situation again, when a buyer cancels after payment, just do as I do.  Tell the buyer you will give the refund once the money is available.  Then you will see if there is still a refund charge.  I do not refund until I have the money in my eBay balance..."

If you are seeking advice and reading through this thread, please ignore this poor advice...

nothing good can come from withholding a refund....nothing....

as far as ebay accounting....it is somewhat difficult to follow, because some items are in 'real-time' while some are delayed (processing)

I saw you mentioned customer still did not have refund...that is possibly because the method of payment from the buyer is slow posting that refund back to the customer. I have seen them take 5 days to get back to the customer (through a credit card)...I have also seen 1 day with Paypal for example