I'll keep this as brief as possible.
Yesterday evening around 9 P.M. Eastern a buyer purchased and paid for a used motorcycle gas tank we had listed. Due to the fact that used gas tanks are considered a fire risk by the Department of Transportation and shipping companies refuse to ship them we had the tank listed as local pickup only. The fact that the tank was listed as local pickup only was stated in multiple locations in the listing, nowhere in the listing did we say we would ship the tank or offer a shipping option.
When I saw the sale at around 11 P.M. I messaged the buyer through the "contact the buyer" link on the transaction, in that message I pointed out the fact that the tank was listed as local pickup only and asked the buyer when they would like to pick it up. This morning I received 3 messages from the buyer. In the first message they said they didn't see the local pickup stipulation and requested a refund. In the second message they said they thought we would ship the tank. In the last message they asked if we would ship it anyway.
About an hour after the last message they opened an INR claim which caused eBay to place the payment they made for the tank on hold and now prevents me from simply refunding the buyer. Uploading tracking is impossible because the tank was listed as local pickup only and eBay doesn't let sellers purchase shipping labels for local pickup only items.
Now we have an unwarranted INR ding on our account and face the very real possibility of being hit with a unwarranted non-performing seller ding as well if we don't resolve the claim in a few days. We'll also loose about $35 in selling and PLS fees if we don't find a way to issue a refund before the buyer can ask eBay to step in.
We did the right thing and followed DOT/shipping company regulations in our listing and we would of had no problem cancelling the transaction/refunding the buyer but now we're being harmed by a stupid eBay policy that allows a buyer to open a INR claim less than 24 hours after making the purchase.
Any suggestions on how to deal with this and mitigate our losses.
