Struggling to cancel an order

[2badcards]

It seems impossible to cancel an order.  

Unfortunately, the experience as a seller (and buyer) on eBay is close to a nightmare. 
As a seller, I have tried to cancel an order to get the "Your refund did not go through because we could not verify your payment option. Please change your payment option and try again." 

I have added and tried multiple payment options, and I could even see money taken from my account, but nothing happened - the funds returned. What is the matter? I have ordered and sold items this month alone - but my payment options need to be fixed (only when) refunded. Is this a trick?

As a buyer, I had an order going to my past address (removed from the system but somehow used - by mistake), and I need help getting the order or the refund. 
What is going on? I feel you are trying to kill eBay, and it is working. 

[ckimodog]

@2badcards 

This is a community discussion forum, not eBay Inc.  Did you try to contact customer service to see what the problem might be?  There may be a glitch happening.  This is not uncommon.  I would try a little later and see if the cancellation will take effect. 

Sorry for your frustration.

Happy Selling & buying!

[dbfolks166mt · Accepted solution]

It seems impossible to cancel an order.  

Unfortunately, the experience as a seller (and buyer) on eBay is close to a nightmare. 
As a seller, I have tried to cancel an order to get the "Your refund did not go through because we could not verify your payment option. Please change your payment option and try again." 

     I am assuming this is your posting account since I see no active or sold listings so guessing on a couple of things. 

     Is this an order the buyer has actually paid for? When you tried to cancel the order as the seller what option did you use for canceling the order? When you cancel an order generally the first place eBay will try to process the refund is through the buyers pending payment funds but depending on the time between when the buyer paid and when you attempted to cancel those funds may not be showing as available yet. EBay may then try to issue the refund through the checking account that is linked to your selling account and it could be possible that link is not available. 

I have added and tried multiple payment options, and I could even see money taken from my account, but nothing happened - the funds returned. What is the matter? I have ordered and sold items this month alone - but my payment options need to be fixed (only when) refunded. Is this a trick?

What account did you see the funds taken from? When you say "returned" do you mean the funds you saw taken from your account were returned do you mean the funds were taken out of your checking account and then returned to the same account?

As a buyer, I had an order going to my past address (removed from the system but somehow used - by mistake), and I need help getting the order or the refund. 

As a buyer you cannot cancel an order but you need to reach out to the seller and explain the situation and ask them to cancel the order. If you are still interested in the item let the seller know if they repost it your will repurchase once you have your correct address information updated. Make sure you update ALL of your address information in your account settings. 

What is going on? I feel you are trying to kill eBay, and it is working. 

[2badcards]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

> Is this an order the buyer has actually paid for?
Yes.

> When you tried to cancel the order as the seller what option did you use for canceling the order?
The item is damaged or not in stock reason. Right now the item is in Cancellation pending status.

> What account did you see the funds taken from?
I can see in my bank account a £0.30 transaction that gets cancelled after a few minutes.

> When you say "returned" do you mean the funds you saw taken from your account were returned do you mean the funds were taken out of your checking account and then returned to the same account?
Yes, the transactions appear now as “Reverted”.

The address issue.
There are a lot of addresses linked with the account. I wonder how other systems survive with a much shorter process.
After selling a couple of medium-sized items, shipping them, buying cardboard boxes £, printing the label ££, and going to the post office £££ I reached a clear conclusion.
Giving the item for free is a much better financial choice.
Gumtree (an eBay brand, I believe) proved a much better place to sell (as a private seller and not a vendor), for example, a vacuum cleaner that did not sell for £10 on eBay but made waves at £25 on Gumtree, with 6-7 interested buyers in the first half a day.

Also here ... I hit reply and somehow also recorded the action as selecting the Best Answer. 
Is it me?  

[dhbookds]

@2badcards 

You are posting on the US board........and are in the UK.......  I suggest you post on the UK board as there may be problems/glitches that are on that site, but not on the US site.........

[dbfolks166mt]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

> Is this an order the buyer has actually paid for?
Yes.

> When you tried to cancel the order as the seller what option did you use for canceling the order?
The item is damaged or not in stock reason. Right now the item is in Cancellation pending status.

     I have only ever canceled a few orders and never for an item being out of stock. That may have something to do with the pending status I would wait and see if it clears after a day or two. If not you may have to contact eBay support and I strongly recommend doing so through the Facebook connection as the regular eBay CS these days is abysmal. 

> What account did you see the funds taken from?
I can see in my bank account a £0.30 transaction that gets cancelled after a few minutes.

> When you say "returned" do you mean the funds you saw taken from your account were returned do you mean the funds were taken out of your checking account and then returned to the same account?
Yes, the transactions appear now as “Reverted”.

     Highly probably it is because the cancellation is still pending. I would suspect that once the cancellation is processed that the funds will once again be taken from your account and returned to the buyer who has, as you noted, actually paid. 

The address issue.
There are a lot of addresses linked with the account. I wonder how other systems survive with a much shorter process.

     Agreed there are a LOT of addresses linked to a sellers/buyers account(s) but this allows a lot of flexability especially for businesses that may be located in one spot and shipping/receiving from multiple points, sort of like Amazon does. 

After selling a couple of medium-sized items, shipping them, buying cardboard boxes £, printing the label ££, and going to the post office £££ I reached a clear conclusion.
Giving the item for free is a much better financial choice.

In some cases it is, no argument from me on that one. 

Gumtree (an eBay brand, I believe) proved a much better place to sell (as a private seller and not a vendor), for example, a vacuum cleaner that did not sell for £10 on eBay but made waves at £25 on Gumtree, with 6-7 interested buyers in the first half a day.

One of the outcomes of the pandemic was the explosion in the number of ecommerce sites. I seldom buy anything on eBay these days simply because I can find it cheaper elsewhere. I also live in a large metropolitan area so there are a LOT of local forums with a robust list of things for sale as well as local B&M stores. I also diversified across multiple venues quite some time ago and sell less than 20% of my items on eBay these days. Some of that was forced by eBay and an ever expanding list of prohibited items as well as the VERO program. Ecommerce options continue to expand for both buyers and sellers these days. Savvy shoppers and sellers are taking advantage of those opportunities. 

Also here ... I hit reply and somehow also recorded the action as selecting the Best Answer. 
Is it me?  

[markec]

I've had the same issue as a buyer and this time I'm also filing with PayPal right away. Unlike other sites like Amazon when you request a cancellation IMMEDIATELY it should be automated, obviously nobody worked on shipping it yet. This is plainly poor customer service for literally a few dollars when they turn a blind eye to a very straight forward request, you might as well advertise to everyone that all transactions are final because it is like that like 90%, it's pulling teeth to get any action. This creates a feeling of DISGUST and prevents me from buying through eBay, I actually have bought VERY LITTLE in past years I don't care if you have good deals.

Edit: It seems they approved the PayPal refund. I bet anything if I didn't do that nothing would happen on eBays side and they would have shipped it saying it cannot be done. I don't know if it's more the seller side or eBays side (probably)  but it creates for a negative buyer experience.

And why does it let you rate the transaction as positive/negative when obviously the seller has not shipped it yet??  The buyer has to receive the item or at least it should read the shipped status even if there's no tracking data referenced so as to be able to judge the experience. Who the hell programs this and how long has eBay been in business that they don't see this common sense stuff???