Paypal would not let me refund money on returns – got 3 negative feedbacks

[Cindlequist]

Hi this is my first time posting so I hope I can convey what a rabbit hole I have fallen down. I sell mostly vintage and antique dolls and toys. 99% of my buyers are total angels but when they are bad, they are BAD. I ran some auctions on a large lot of collectible dolls from the 1950s. Im not an expert on these particular dolls and the collectors are quite picky. I had two buyers who found flaws with their purchases. One was super cool and the other tried to shake me down for a partial refund. I told both to please return for a full refund, including shipping. The one who tried to shake me down was very dramatic about how she “was hurt” by my oversight in mentioning the dolls flaws. She also seemed to be a very knowledgeable and experienced collector and buyer – yet she had ZER0 feedback. A week later I received the items back and went to refund the buyers. I pressed “refund buyer” in the ebay app and got a “technical error” saying my payment did not go through. So I tried on my laptop. Same thing – different error but it said to look at transaction in Paypal, so I did. It showed the funds were being held. I explained my problem to the buyers and asked if they had opened a buyer dispute in Paypal. No they hadn’t. Therefor, this was going to take some time to get on the phone with Ebay/ Paypal and get to the bottom of things. This takes some doing for me (I have two small children, one with special needs. I have no time – this is why I have an ebay biz!) So I went to take care of it last night and saw that the bratty buyer had left me THREE negative feedbacks on each of the items she purchased. Her claim is “item not as described.” I called Ebay to have them review her crazy emails and they said because she did not EXPLICITLY say she would leave me bad feedback unless I gave her a discount, there was nothing they could do. Then I called Paypal. They said that they buyers had opened a dispute and that it why I could not refund the money. I had them confirm this again because both buyers had said they DID NOT open a dispute with Paypal. Paypal said they would go ahead and release the funds so I could refund the buyers. So I refunded them. I then asked my nice buyer once again if she had opened a dispute. She said she did not. It must be something that is automatically triggered in Ebay when they return the items and you (the seller) purchase the return label. In the meantime, neither Ebay or Paypal sent me any heads up that this was the case. Since then I have spoken to two separate Ebay reps located overseas who say they cannot remove this negative feedback. It is so frustrating that a zero percent shady buyer can wreck the feedback of a high volume top seller (I slip on and off top seller status – selling about 10K per month)! arg. My next question is this: ebay is running a promotion where you can have an anchor store for the price of a regular store for one month. Should I do it just to get the dedicated customer service line? My feedback went from 99% to 99.7 so it’s not the end of the world but I am pretty bitter. Thank you for reading this and tons of love to Ryanne and Jay, who are like the co-workers I don’t actually have! Cindy

[Jay]

Quick note: When writing long messages like this, its helpful if you break it up into separate paragraphs. Its difficult to read a huge block of text with multiple trains of thought.

Sorry you got a negative feedback. If you actually sell $10k a month, then Im surprised this is your first one. You obviously give good customer service. But grumpy buyers happens and sometimes there’s nothing we can do. We ignore buyers who get personal and emotional. Just refund and move on. We simply keep selling and dilute the negative feedback with plenty of positive feedbacks.

Not sure why you ran into that refund glitch. Never happened to us. Glad you worked it out.

[Sharyn]

If I sell more than one item to a buyer at a time, I find that their positive feedback only gets counted once. So, even if they give positive feedback for each item, my feedback counter goes up by only one.

I would think that the same thing should happen for negative feedback. It wouldn’t really be fair if negative feedback from one shipment would count three times when a positive feedback would count only once. If your rating was affected by three negatives, you could use that argument with ebay. I’m not saying that I’ve ever used that argument or that it will work, but you could try.

Anyway, Jay’s advice is good – just move on. However, block her from ever buying from you again. I’m not sure how you get to the blocked buyers list from account settings, but see if this link works for you:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin&hc=1&hm=eog4d71f%2B1%3Af4

[AdventureE]

Feedback counting depends on when the item(s) were purchased. If it was all in one day or one purchase, then it is only counted once but the actual wording is still available to be seen.

[ashend57]

Make sure to leave a reply to their feedback on the eBay platform. Say: return accepted & full refund given.

[Ryanne]

i thought that if you accept a return and then give a refund, a buyer can’t leave a negative. does anyone know where this documentation would be? if so, you can point to that documentation and have them remove the feedback.

[Cindlequist]

Update: I got a reply from EBay for Business on FB:

Thanks Cindy. I’ve reviewed the feedbacks. Unfortunately the comments say nothing about having to wait for a refund, and focus solely on their displeasure about your descriptions. This wouldn’t qualify for feedback removal. Though it would be recommended that you go to your feedback profile, scroll to the bottom, and click on “Reply to feedback received”. This way you can reply so that your potential buyers can see how you resolved the situation or get your side of the story.

You’ve got an amazing record and I can imagine that these negatives don’t sit well with you. I hope that it gives you some consolation that we don’t use feedback as a metric for your seller performance any longer, and that buyers aren’t reviewing feedback anywhere near as often as they used to.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

~Kelly

I found this weirdly reassuring. It was certainly better advice than I got on the phone last night, where the rep told me to just refund the buyer through friends and family (!) and take a screenshot for proof. So to Ryanne’s query, they can leave you bad feedback even if you totally refund them. My rating went from 99% to 99.7 And no, even though I have been doing this for a hundred years I’ve never been hit with three at once. It suuucks but I’m moving on. Thanks for all your advice!

Cindy
New York

[AdventureE]

I agree with ashend57 “Say: return accepted & full refund given”. In addition, I would add, 100% satisfaction guaranteed or 100% satisfaction is our goal. Turn the situation in your favor by having the final, positive, professional word!

[So Cal Joe]

Interesting..

I just had a buyer leave me 4 positive feedbacks for items purchased on the same day, but only received 1 to my totals. Ebay says I received 4 today and there are 4 individual feedbacks with comments, but my positive number went up by 1.. not 4.

[Author]

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