Package returned unclaimed after the buyer already tried to refund

[khaleidon]

Hello!

I sold an item late February and it was sent internationally from Germany to Canada.

I shipped it the next day.  A day after that,  when the shipping confirmation was already out,  the buyer attempted to cancel the purchase with the reasoning of  " I changed my mind,  the item is too expensive after all. "  ( Important to note here that I accepted a price offer. )  Naturally,  I declined.

After that,  shipping took quite a while.  Although I sent it with tracking,  there seemed to have been a bug with the tracking that prevented it from updating  ( of course in a situation like this that is super annoying because it makes tracking unreliable. )  I contacted the shipping company who researched the parcel status and they told me it was already being returned to me.

Eventually, the package arrived back to my place.  The reasoning for the return is  " package unclaimed. "

EDIT:  According to the buyer's response apparently they're not the owner of the house it was sent to either.

Now my questions if what do I need to do?  Do I have to refund the buyer?  If I refuse to refund,  is there anything they can do?  I'm not really interested in reshipping to them given the circumstances and I wouldn't be surprised if they did it on purpose.

[pjcdn2005]

If they open an item not received claim and you have tracking showing that the package was unclaimed, you should win the claim.    But since you do have the package back,  I would refund them less the shipping cost and any fees that aren't refundable.   Before you do anything, you might want to wait for the buyer to contact you.  However, if you have put them on your blocked list, they will not be able to message you.

I doubt that someone would put the wrong address on the package on purpose since they could end up with nothing at the end.  But it is possible that they refused to accept the package since they wanted a refund.

[wastingtime101]

This is my standard advice for RTS (returned to sender) packages. Take the parts that are relevant to your situation. I've bolded what I think is key info for you @khaleidon .

You have a few options. You should decide which route you'll be taking and communicate with the buyer, but wait until the item is returned (and delivered) to you before you take any of the following actions.

• You can refund the buyer the item cost minus original shipping and minus a portion of your eBay fees (fee credits are prorated on a partial refund so you won't get back fees on the shipping amount you withhold). Go to your orders page, find the transaction and select "send refund." On the next page enter the amount. After that, relist the item and if you still want to work with this buyer you can tell them to repurchase it with the correct name/address.
• Have the buyer sort out their address issue then pay for re-shipping. Send them an invoice through PayPal or give them your PayPal e-mail. This is post-sale so it's OK to exchange e-mail addresses. It's also OK to ship to a different address because it's technically not tied to the original transaction. You would not purchase the shipping label through eBay or upload tracking to the transaction. You would purchase it from an alternate site like pirateship.com or paypal.com/shipnow and you can send the buyer the new tracking # through e-mail or eBay messages.
• You can cancel the transaction "problem with address" which will trigger a full refund to the buyer and your FVF would be credited.
• You can do nothing. The buyer's MBG protection is voided when there's a package delivery attempt. I don't recommend this because even though you'll win an INR (item not received) claim on eBay, there's nothing stopping that buyer from going to their credit card to file a dispute and why deal with all that? I also think handling it before it gets to this stage with a partial refund is the "right" thing to do if you're not going to make reshipping arrangements.
• You might also want to direct the buyer to this page so their address is updated for future purchases: Account Settings: Addresses