I am in the process of trying to issue a refund for an item that a buyer returned. I was able to send the buyer a shipping label and the return arrived a few days ago, but I keep encountering an error message every time I attempt to issue the actual refund through eBay. I get all the way to the "Review and refund" step of the process, click "Refund now," and get a spinning blue and gray circle and the message "Give us a few seconds." After about ten seconds, an error message appears that says, "Something went wrong. It's not you, it's us. Please go back and try again." I've tried at least 30 times now over the course of three days and receive this same error message every single time.
I don't know if any of this is relevant, but I'm primarily using a MacBook Pro and have tried to complete the process using Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. I also tried using a family member's PC, this time attempting it on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome, and also tried a few times on my phone, all to no avail.
I contacted eBay's customer service yesterday but haven't heard back yet, and I'm getting increasingly anxious that I won't be able to issue the refund in time and that the buyer will think I'm attempting to scam her. She's already been difficult and unpleasant to deal with, and I've frankly been far kinder to her than I probably should have been by allowing her to request a return in the first place. (She failed to read my original listing and then got upset and accusatory toward me when the item arrived with the original packaging having been opened, when I had specified multiple times that the item was not new.) I just want to issue this refund ASAP and hopefully never have to deal with this individual again.
Is this step of eBay's return process down universally right now, or is there something else I can do to get the system to properly process this refund?
Also, one thought I had was that I know it is possible to refund a transaction on PayPal. If the deadline for my issuing this refund is approaching and I haven't been able to get it to go through, will eBay's system recognize that I refunded the buyer through PayPal and mark the return process as complete, or will it still appear as though I need to complete the refund process through eBay?
