Return Issue

[trejo402]

Hello, I recently got a message from a buyer claiming that her daughter didn't want the pair of headphones she purchased anymore and wanted a refund. I decided to accept the refund and allow them to return the item to me. This is my first return and I haven't done one before. After accepting the return, I received a message saying the buyer was refunded. A couple of hours later I got a message from the buyer saying they are new to eBay and have never done a return before. They said that they received my money but weren't prompted in any way to send the item back or directed towards a return shipping label. They admitted this was weird but wanted to ask me what to do. I told them that there must be a mistake somehow and gave them my address and told them to just ship the item to me and provide a tracking number. The buyer has not gotten back to me in a couple of days and I'm starting to get worried I lost not only my headphones but also my money. What should I do next? Any help is appreciated thanks!

[mr_lincoln]

@trejo402   The wording in your post is a little stranger so lets clarify something ... did the Buyer process a Return and did you have the opportunity to provide a shipping label?  You said you decided to "accept the refund" ... do you mean you got an eBay message giving you the option to give the Buyer a refund instead of the Buyer returning the item?  If so and you agreed then both the item and money are gone.

In the future direct Buyers to process an official return request, when you get the item back then you refund them.

[mtgraves7984]

Go to the case and check the notes. You'll find it in your Seller Hub/Orders/Cases. When the next page populates, use the drop-down menu to find 'Closed requests or cases', or 'All requests or cases'. Good luck.

[bigdeals.etc · Accepted solution]

What did you actually do when you said you “accepted the refund”, just before ebay sent you that message saying the buyer was refunded? Was there an actual ebay page showing you the details of the buyer wanting to return the item? And if so, you clicked on one of the refund options, right?

If this was the case, it sounds to me that you may have accidentally clicked to refund the buyer and let them keep the item... versus requiring the buyer to return the item for a refund upon item returned.

Good thing your buyer is (at least was) responsive. The next thing I would do is try to give the buyer the opportunity to return the item to you BUT giving them as little work/trouble as possible. It’s likely your buyer was not responsive because you asked for them to ship to you and give you tracking... to some people that actually may sound like a lot of work. So what you do is create the postage yourself FOR your buyer. Use their address as the sender and your address as the receiver. Copy that postage and send it to your buyer. Tell them to simply print out the label and slap it on the package. They don’t even need to drop off at the PO. Just give it to their daily mail carrier as outgoing mail.

Good luck.