Canceled orders for buyer and lose paypal fees.

[usmediamass]

I often have buyers bid for and item, pay and then send a message that they have changed their mind and want to the cancel the order.  Their reasons are quite creative.  In the past it cost seller's time however, now with paypal's new refund policy, paypal keeps the original fees they charged to collect the money from the buyer.  So sellers are losing around 4% of a sale that never went through.  If you issue the refund through paypal and deduct for the fees you are losing ebay will keep final value fees.

Does anyone know a way around this or is ebay going to step up and protect the sellers from buyer who do this frequently?   Cancelled orders are the same as non-payment to me.  However, now they cost more, ebay should threat them the same as non-payment cases and sellers should be able to block payers who have canceled two transaction in the last six or twelve months the same as non-payment.

[evry1nositswindy]

I got hit with this a few weeks ago and the"buyer" was in the UK.  I lost $1.59 for doing as the "buyer" requested.  I agree we should be able to block.  I also think she should have taken the hit on the fee, not me.  She could take it out if the child's allowance to teach him not to buy with mommy's account.

[usmediamass]

@evry1nositswindy 

Do you know about the sales tax problem also?

If you ship to a state that ebay collects sales tax on the item and not shipping and you take return for buyer's remorse and do not refund the shipping, ebay takes the full amount of sales tax from your paypal and account and gives it back to the buyer however, they pro-rate the reversal of sales tax credit to you bases on the item to shipping ratio.   So there was not a taxable transaction however, ebay knowingly keeps part of the sales tax money they took out of your account at the time of the sale.  

[evry1nositswindy]

@usmediamass 

No, I didn't know that.  I bet a lot of sellers do not.

[kensgiftshop]

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@usmediamass wrote:

sellers should be able to block payers who have canceled two transaction in the last six or twelve months the same as non-payment.

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If all sellers were honest when the cancel a sale, that might work.

When you have sellers that cancel a sale because shipping was to high or they didn't start the auction high enough, then they try to cancel the sale as buyer requested to keep from getting a ding.

Should those buyers get punished because of bad sellers?

[atikovi]

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@usmediamass wrote:

If you issue the refund through paypal and deduct for the fees you are losing ebay will keep final value fees.

Does anyone know a way around this 

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You deduct the Paypal AND Ebay fees. I done this twice successfully after notifying the buyer. My listings were local pickup only which may have more leverage though to do this.

[usmediamass]

@kensgiftshop 

So as a good seller, what am I suppose to do when a buyer pays then asks me to cancel a transaction? 

I have done nothing wrong but will lose 4% of a sale that never happened.  

Should I raise my prices for good buyers to cover my losses becasue of the bad buyers?

It would not be hard for ebay to verify who asked for the cancellation.  

[moldy5]

wow, yet another "my kid accidentally bought this item" story. what bull.

[kensgiftshop]

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@usmediamass wrote:

So as a good seller, what am I suppose to do when a buyer pays then asks me to cancel a transaction? 

I have done nothing wrong but will lose 4% of a sale that never happened.  

Should I raise my prices for good buyers to cover my losses becasue of the bad buyers?

It would not be hard for ebay to verify who asked for the cancellation.  

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When I had my own merchant account for my web sites, I didn't get any of the fee's back when a buyer canceled or wanted a refund.

Did I like it, no, but if I wanted to use their service I had to deal with it.

Right now, until we all get switched over to Managed Payments, there isn't much we can do if we want to continue to sell.

It wouldn't be hard for Ebay to do a lot of things, but I don't see them doing much to help the sellers.

[usmediamass]

@kensgiftshop 

You are right "I don't see them doing much to help the sellers.   ebay does not do a lot make it easier for sellers, which would lower the cost of selling on ebay, which would lower prices, which will increase sells.  Look at ebay's track record, switching to ebay managed payment will give them more control and not make them do easy things to make it better for seller.  

[7606dennis]

Frankly, I would advise against accepting cancellation requests from someone that has already paid.  Of course, under the auction laws of most states, placing a bid enters the bidder into a binding contract so there is another reason to consider not accepting cancellation requests from auction winners. 

[evry1nositswindy]

@moldy5
An autistic kid to boot!

[evry1nositswindy]

@7606dennis 

Sure that works in theory.  But with free returns, i would have had to pay to get my item back.  Either way I'm losing money, it is just a question of losing less money.  I do agree that something should be done.  Charge the buyer a cancellation fee, not the seller.  A quick look at messages will show it was buyer initiated. 

[7606dennis]

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

@7606dennis 

Sure that works in theory.  But with free returns, i would have had to pay to get my item back.  Either way I'm losing money, it is just a question of losing less money.  I do agree that something should be done.  Charge the buyer a cancellation fee, not the seller.  A quick look at messages will show it was buyer initiated. 

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Alas!  It sounds like you are in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.  Bummer! 

Of course, I'm not sure if I'd want to be tied up with that free returns business anyway.  

[lakeland_music]

I think it is far more common for buyers to change their mind after buying an item and paying for it.   I've been praying they don't do this since Paypal's new rip off scheme began, and I may have finally fallen into the situation with a buyer who wanted free shipping but did not tell me they were an international customer.  They went ahead with it anyway, and messaged me now expecting free shipping.