Forced to refund item, then it was delivered.

[boda65]

Short version: I listed an item US only. Winning bidder from Australia. I try to make people happy so I ship it. He pays actual shipping price. He won it on April 4th, I ship right away. Fast forward to end of May, tracking shows it in Australia but no other details. Understandably, buyer is upset he has not received his item. Does not contact me but instead files case with ebay. Before I even have time to respond or try to track down the item, ebay just bills me and refunds the guys money. Today, I just happened to look at my USPS app and it shows the item delivered May 30th. What can I do? I'm not sure how to contact ebay but it seems to me they ought to make the guy pay for the item he received. Any help or advice appreciated.

[myboardid]

eBay is not going to help you with this situation.  They have no way of forcing the buyer to pay.  The best you can do is send the buyer an invoice and hope he is honest enough to pay it.  Be nice about, nasty will drive him away. 

[mistwomandancing]

Your option now is to send an invoice to the buyer and hope he pays again.

Your polite and gracious note with the invoice should say something to the effect that you follow tracking on your sales and that you see his purchase has now been delivered.  You appreciate his business, and thank you.

I actually don't know whether you can file an Unpaid Item case on this after-the-fact of delivery, if he refuses to pay.  Others will be able to fill you in on that, I expect. 

[chrysylys]

Your first step is to contact the buyer. If they have any integrity, they will pay for the item.

[dhbookds]

Most importantly, you'd better make a habit of checking ebay every day.......so you can catch stuff before it becomes "done" by ebay..........  A seller has a certain # of days to respond to claims, and sometimes you can get decisions put off by asking........  but that has to be done in a timely manner.....

No way is Ebay going to refund.  You can send the buyer an invoice thru paypal, stately NICELY that you see the item finally got there and hope he pays.........but no way to force him to......

[mistwomandancing]

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boda65 wrote:

Short version: I listed an item US only. Winning bidder from Australia.

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I take it that you didn't have your blocks in place on the listing of this item, which would have prevented anyone outside the States from making this purchase, other than through a reshipper. 

If you don't want this to happen in the future, you should get your preferences set up to block buyers from any parts of the world you don't want to ship to.

[boda65]

Thanks to all for your help. I have taken your advice and sent a paypal invoice with all the tracking and details, and a very sweet and polite note. Now I'll just hope for the best.