Partial refund, but refund issued by eBay in full

Summary: The main topic of the discussion is a partial refund on an eBay purchase, with the assurance that the full refund has nevertheless been issued. sdsaponiedetersivi and heavenwelkin step in several times to clarify the situation and make sure the refund was successfully completed. The exchange shows an attempt to resolve a refund issue while keeping communication open and transparent.

I’m asking for help. I have a customer who bought 12 pieces of an item. Claiming it was not working (which isn’t true, but let’s set that aside for now), they are requesting a return with refund.

I pay for the return shipping and when the package arrives I see that there were only 11 pieces inside instead of 12.

I write to the customer in chat asking for an explanation and they confirm that they had “forgotten the twelfth piece”.

I call Ebay support and they tell me to write to the buyer in chat proposing a partial refund (the value of the 11 pieces, that is, instead of €24, €22). The buyer accepted this, and wrote it explicitly in chat, but Ebay today refunded the full amount.

During the phone call they told me that if there is an agreement between the parties, Ebay could have made this partial refund, which unfortunately I could no longer do once the dispute was open.

Now I have filed an appeal with the photos of the package that arrived and with the screenshots of the chat showing what we had said to each other; do you think it can be resolved?

sdsaponiedetersivi

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Posted 1 year ago·Last reply 1 year ago

10 comments

sdsaponiedetersivi

OP1 year ago

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Everything is resolved, the defect disappeared without having to contact support.

From this experience, many times it is always better to call first rather than having to fix things afterward.

heavenwelkin

·1 year ago

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@sdsaponiedetersivi wrote:
Everything’s been resolved, the defect disappeared without having to contact support.

From this experience, more often than not it’s always better to call first rather than having to fix things afterward.

It’s always advisable to contact support when there are situations that don’t perfectly match the ideal conditions as per the guidelines.

In your case, the issue you described on the forum was certainly taken care of by a support representative.

Kind regards.

sdsaponiedetersivi

OP1 year ago

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Thanks, there was no need to provide guides etc... The person who replied to me had me explain what happened, then put me on hold because they checked what I had indicated in the appeal and since the buyer had accepted the partial refund (mentioned in the chat) they credited me back €2.

And even more importantly, the account performance won’t be affected!

heavenwelkin

·1 year ago

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@sdsaponiedetersivi wrote:
Thanks, there was no need to mention guides etc... The person who replied to me had me explain what had happened, then put me on hold because she checked what I had indicated in the appeal and since the buyer had accepted the partial refund (stated in the chat) they credited me back €2.
And even more importantly, the account performance will not be affected !

Great sdsaponiedetersivi 👍

Thanks for sharing.

Best regards.

sdsaponiedetersivi

OP1 year ago

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Update: I'll try calling support again, since, unlike what I was told by the operator, they’ve just put the defect in the seller’s performance.

Could it be that many actions are automated and so they see things differently from what the phone operators say?

Or will the defect go away when I actually receive the refund (on the phone he told me about roughly 48 hours)?

heavenwelkin

·1 year ago

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Good morning sdsaponiedetersivi

The call center operators do not have "administrator" privileges over everything, (if we want to use IT terminology).

It would be best to call support again and see if they can fix it themselves or redirect the request to the relevant department.

Kind regards.

sdsaponiedetersivi

OP1 year ago

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Thanks, so I can reply to support

heavenwelkin

·1 year ago

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@sdsaponiedetersivi wrote:
I’m asking for help. I have a customer who bought 12 pieces of an item. Claiming it was not working (which isn’t true, but for now let’s leave that aside), they are asking to return it for a refund.
I paid for the return shipping and when the package arrived I saw that there were only 11 pieces inside instead of 12.
I wrote to the customer in chat asking for an explanation and they confirmed that they had “forgotten the twelfth piece”.
I phoned eBay support, where they told me to write to the buyer in chat proposing a partial refund (the value of the 11 pieces, meaning instead of €24, €22). The buyer accepted this, and wrote it explicitly in chat, but eBay today refunded the full amount.
From the phone call they told me that if there is agreement between the parties, eBay could have made this partial refund, something that unfortunately I could no longer do once the dispute was open.
Now I have filed an appeal with photos of the package that arrived and with screenshots of the chat showing what we had said to each other; do you think this can be resolved?

Good evening

The buyer opened a complaint for item not as described, for which you issued a return label.

The procedure provides that upon receipt of the item you issue a full refund.

As I think you know, the procedures are standardized and that procedure provides a full refund to the buyer.

Which eBay did correctly.

And up to this point everything is fine in my opinion, it is correct.

Unfortunately, even with returns there is the risk that the buyer will not properly follow the procedures.

I believe that at the appeal stage, if you correctly specified that the buyer confirmed they had forgotten a piece as visible in the messages, given that it is a small amount they might grant you the refund for the missing piece.

Let us know how it ends

Kind regards.

sdsaponiedetersivi

OP1 year ago

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But is there a guide page with what you’re pointing out? Thanks

heavenwelkin

·1 year ago

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@sdsaponiedetersivi wrote:
But is there a page in the guide with what you’re referring to? Thanks

There is info about this at this link:

https://www.ebay.it/spaziovenditori/protezione-e-performance/protezione-venditore-professionale

There are no INSTRUCTIONS explaining what happens if a buyer does not follow the return procedures and, for example, returns to the seller:

- an empty package

- a different item

- an incomplete item and/or parts of it

In the link I sent you, it talks about loss of value of the item and a deduction of up to 50% of the value to compensate for the loss of value of the item received.

I recommend that you contact support again about the appeal you made and explain the situation.

Let us know the outcome of the appeal.

Kind regards.