Funds still held 11 DAYS after return request closed?

[lillylover425]

I sold a dress on 6/23, it shipped 6/24, delivered 6/27. It was brand new with tags and my policy is "no returns." On 7/3, the buyer opened a return request and the money was pulled from my paypal account and held. Her reason was "the dress doesn't fit" so no reason I needed to accept the return, especially since she'd had it for a week and hadn't bothered to ask for measurements or if I'd take the return before she bought. I closed the case that night-7/3. I STILL don't have my money, the ebay hold is still in place. 

I've called 6 times, spent over 3 hours on the phone, and I'm not getting anywhere. I was told last Friday that they were putting in a "manual release request" and I'd have it released in a few hours but apparently that didn't actually happen. I called again Saturday and was told that the person I talked to on Friday lied and it would still take several days. I waited until this past Wednesday and called again and that person was "going to take personal ownership of this issue" and call me back the next day but never did. She did at least finally put in the manual release request. I called back Thursday because the person I spoke to Wednesday hasn't called back. I got plenty of attitude of attitude but no actual useful information on why this is happening or what they're going to do to make it right. After I hung up, I did get an email that promised my money would be released but it could take "up to 72 hours." While the email was sent Thursday, the release was put in Wednesday and it says "up to." I called paypal Thursday and they said while it's closed for me, ebay hasn't closed it internally so that's the problem. Once it's officially closed, paypal release the money in minutes. I called again today since it's been 72 hours since the Wednesday release request and I thought maybe asking specifically that the case be closed might help. The person I talked to was an idiot and not at all helpful. After 20 minutes I hung up because I'm getting no where and honestly my time is valuable and I've wasted a ton of it already trying to get my money.

I'm really over this-it's ridiculous that they don't have a way to fix this immediately and would I ever get my money without a ton of effort because I shouldn't have to call so many times to have a "manual release" put in in the first place. After the Thursday phone call, someone higher up in customer service was supposed to contact me but of course that never happened either. I asked that my fees for the dress not be charged, that's the least they could do at this point, and no one can even guarantee they can do that. At this point, I have very little faith in customer service and I'm not sure I feel comfortable selling on ebay. (I'm not running a business, I'm a med school student selling stuff from my closet but I've been using ebay for years and have sold over $8000 of stuff and a lot more in Facebook groups using just paypal so I know what I'm doing and know enough to know this is NOT normal or right!)

[lillylover425]

I've been on my second phone call today with ebay for over 2 hours but after refusing to settle by waiting on yet another manual release request, I initiated a three way call with the ebay manager and paypal so the can hash it out. Paypal tells ebay the case doesn't show as closed in their system, ebay tells them it is closed and I should have my money. The first paypal employee said she didn't have the ability to release my money even with ebay's verbal permission. We talked to a paypal supervisor and are on hold again while she tries to fix it. While I'm glad I'm finally getting somewhere, it's ridiciulous it's taken 13 days and 9 hours of my life to get my money released when I did everything I was supposed to. It's still not released either so fingers crossed this works.

[dtexley3]

tyler@ebay  can one of the blues follow up?   This is a prime example why it ticks us off to be told to call CS.

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the tag @dtexley3, I'm happy to clarify where I can. 

A remorse return will generate a temporary hold on funds for non-Top Rated members. This should release as soon as the return is handled, either by accepting the return and issuing a refund after getting the item back or declining the return if your return policy is 'no returns'. Clearly that wasn't the case with this particular transaction. 

I'm not sure what occurred to keep @lillylover425's funds on hold after declining the return. Whatever impacted the regular process may also have kept the normal methods that CS uses to release funds from working. I'll review the interactions you had with them to make sure that proper coaching is given if necessary. Thanks!

[lillylover425]

It wasn't even an attempt at a "remorse return" it was literally a return request with the reason being "item doesn't fit", not any sort of claim where she tried to state it wasn't as described because it happend not to fit her. It sucks that just because I'm not a major seller that something like that results in my money being held. I'm in graduate school selling only my stuff, this isn't a business but that doesn't mean I don't deserve decent customer service support from ebay. I do have "above standard" status and have sold over $8300 worth of stuff on ebay. Clearly this was some sort of weird issue but the fact that it took 13 days and ultimately over 9 hours of my time just to get my money back is ridiculous and of course ebay has offered nothing in return to make it up to me. I even asked Brady through FB message when he finally responded last night if they would at least enroll me in the concierge service so maybe, just maybe I could have a better customer service experience with any future issues IF I decide to continue selling on ebay and he couldn't even do that. 

I sold this dress for $100 with free shipping, after ebay's cut, paypal fees, and first class postage, I cleared $83. Even rounding down to 8 hours of time spent dealing with this, at $10/hour (and my time is worth way more than that) at this point I've just broken even. I might as well have burned the dress in my yard and walked away rather than selling it. I wasted 3.5 total hours of my life on the phone yesterday but I was tired of being told to be patient. Ebay certainly wasn't patient in waiting to take their $10 cut before I even got the money from the transaction. 

[lillylover425]

I did finally get my money released yesterday by the way, after 3.5 hours on the phone. The ebay appeals manager who helped me was Perry. Paypal said ebay didn't have the case marked as closed internally even though it's been closed since 7/3 and there have been multiple "manual release requests" put in. It's not my fault ebay and paypal can't make their systems work together and I shouldn't suffer becase of it. If your system fails, emailing paypal to let them know the hold needs to be removed so my money gets released isn't all that satisfactory of a solution when I've waited 8 days and made numerous phone calls already. Yesterday, mulitple ebay employees told me all they could do was put in yet another release request and I could patiently wait another 72+ hours. Why would I have confidence that would work when it didn't work 8 days ago and why should I continue being patient only to have to go through this circus again when my money still isn't released after another 72 hours? An ebay employee also told me they couldn't conference call with paypal yet paypal told me they can only wait 5 minutes for ebay to pick up and of course ebay doesn't pick up any faster when paypal calls either so that call hung up on me after I'd waited the 5 minutes. When I finally got to Perry, she instructed me to initiate the 3 way call-that should've been done the first time I called yesterday. Over the course of the 13 days, every single ebay employee gave me a different estimated wait time for the release as well-some as short as 2-3 hours and some as long as 5 business days. I have screenshots of all the info from the request, the paypal hold, etc. and phone call history with length I spent on phone, I'm tempted to share it with a wider audience (reddit?) so others know this is how ebay treats its sellers.