mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@missjen831 wrote:If the buyer gave the wrong address, they technically aren’t covered by the money back guarantee so yes in this situation you can issue a partial refund. Now if ebays final value fee was more than the shipping cost you should just refund in full and take the FVF credit.
Please make sure you file a cancelation due to bad address FIRST. If you don't file for that cancellation, you will get a defect on your account.
This has happened to me many times over the years. Before I refund anything or file for a cancellation, I always send my customer an email letting them know I got the package back for whatever reason I got it back. I then explain to them that I'm happy to reship the item to them upon receipt of a corrected address. And I explain that if they want it reshipped I'll send them an invoice through PP to cover the reshipment. Then I wait and see if I hear from them. The vast majority of the time I do hear from them, they apologize for their error and opt to have me invoice them and reship.
@pjcdn2005 wrote:The item was shipped so there should not be an out of stock defect given if they refund through PayPal without a cancellation. If they cancel first, they will have to refund in full.
I don't disagree with that. But an Out of Stock defect is NOT the only defect a seller can get from the cancellation process.
If you fully refund a buyer without a cancellation being filed, you do get a defect, so why not file the cancellation. I don't know why it would be a big deal. It is easy and you can do the refund on the same screen.
BTW, I don't remember exactly when, but this was covered on the Weekly Chat a month or two ago.
The op asked if they could withhold the original shipping, a cancellation would not allow that. They didn’t charge for shipping so withholding that amount could be debated but i think that Jen covered that. I probably would not withhold ‘free shipping’ but that depends on the situation.
Thank you, I understood the question the seller asked, I just felt a little further explanation should be given in case someone or the OP were considering a full refund. I wasn't now or then trying to debate anything.
Why not withhold for the shipping even if you offer free shipping? As we all know, it wasn't free, the seller paid for the shipping and that the costs of shipping are just rolled into the price of the product.
I remember reading that the reps claimed an oos defect could be given for any refund without a cancellation but I have had to refund after shipping without a cancellation or claim and have not received a defect.
Those are full refunds as I previously stated. I do partial refunds all the time when a buyer overpays for shipping. Ebay has given the OOS defect a broad definition for some reason. I don't know why they took away the other reasons we use to have when the seller was filing for a cancellation.
There were other posters who mentioned the same thing so I don’t believe the reps were correct that a refund without cancellation equals defect inallsituztins.
You are right, not in ALL situations as you stated. But if you do a partial refund and do not send an email explaining why you did the partial refund in Ebay's M2M, you can get a defect. And if you fully refund without a cancellation in place, you get a defect. You may want to review this Weekly Chat. I think it was the one that we went over this.
The defect is supposed to be for when a seller cannot fulfill their promise to sell an item,not just because a seller refunds for a legitimate reason after shipping the item.
Yes, one would logically think that. But Ebay has, for whatever their reason was, reduced the cancellation process to only three reasons to choose from. Two are buyer reasons and only one is seller, which is the OOS reason. I have no idea why they did that but they did. That doesn't change the fact of what I said above about refunding.
So whatever the OP decides to do, they need to make sure they are covered. If they do a partial refund they need to send an email inside of Ebay's M2M to the buyer explaining the refund.
If they want to do a full refund, they should file for a cancellation of the transaction using the reason of incorrect address. From the cancellation they will be able to process the full refund.
Either way works.
