I have an unusual situation where I received two payments for the same item, from two different buyers. The item was on auction and received only a single bid. The winning bidder placed the bid near the very end of the auction, however it appears that another buyer was somehow able to use the "Buy it Now" feature right before the auction ended around the same time that the winning bidder placed their bid. eBay seemed to have glitched and sent me two payments for the same item. It was only a single listing.
I did not realize that I had received two payments for the item right away. I simply printed the shipping label that eBay generated and mailed the item. Then I received a message from one of the two referenced buyers asking if I had received their payment for the item. I said yes and that it was being shipped. They later asked me for the tracking number, which I had already provided and they should have been able to see in their account, but I messaged it to them anyway. They then told me I had shipped it to the wrong address.
At this point I was confused, so I checked my sold items and confirmed that I had shipped the item to the winning bidder. However, the winning bidder had a different username than the person who was messaging me. I checked my payments section and realized I had two different pending payments on hold for the same item. One was for the winning bid amount from the winning bidder, and the other payment was for the full "Buy it Now" price from the person who was messaging me. The buyer who was communicating with me said she used the "Buy it Now" feature near the end of the auction. I think eBay glitched because the winning bidder placed their bid near the end of the auction at the same time.
The item was delivered to the winning bidder and their payment was released to me and I was paid out to my bank account. However, the buyer who used the "Buy it Now" feature obviously did not receive the item they paid for and wanted a refund. I was reluctant to refund the buyer because the payment was not yet in my "Available Funds", it was still in my "On Hold" section. I did not want eBay to deduct the money from my available funds as this glitch was not my fault.
I ended up refunding the buyer anyway because eBay support told her that the money "was sent to me already and the seller would need to initiate a refund". I figured the payment would eventually clear and be released to me to make up for the money I refunded, however it has been stuck on hold ever since. The payment says "Funds on hold - awaiting delivery. Estimated to be released on June 19th." It is now June 27th and the payment from the buyer I refunded has still not been made available to me. The item was sold on June 7, 2021 and delivered to the winning bidder on June 12th.
Has anybody ever had a problem like this before? I pretty much lost money on this listing because I initiated a refund for a payment that was never released to me. Even though I released the money from the winning bidder, the Buy it Now price of the item, which is the amount I refunded, is higher than the winning bid price.
Another weird thing to note that demonstrates this was an eBay glitch, after the item sold it was relisted. I noticed this immediately and took down the listing within seconds of it being relisted. But I didn't notice the double payment for the item until later.
Please help!
