Think i'm going to have to refund, but have a problem with paypal at the mo. Help pls!!

[Missymoomum]

I've just had a 'non received' message from a buyer of an item that i sold to them on the 12th Sept asking if i'd posted the item. I posted it to the buyer on the 13th Sept and that evening i marked the item as dispatched as i always do. TBH i'm thinking she may be scamming me as this is a month ago now and she would have known i'd dispatched it when i marked it as such and why is she asking me after such a long time?

Anyhoo, i can't prove postage as i sent it First class so i'm thinking i may as well just refund her as i really don't want negative feedback, however, to make things doubly complicated, i've just moved abroad for a short while and my paypal account has been limited as they want me to confirm my banking address which of course i can't do at the mo as they ring the landline!!!!! I've requested they send the code by post (which is being redirected) but it says this could take up to 2 weeks.

What do i do and say to the buyer? At the moment, i've just replied to her and apologised and said that as this has never happened to me before i'm not sure what to do next so have asked her to give me time to find out. As yet i've not offered her a refund.

Advice will be greatfully received.

Thanks in advance

can you try and put her on hold a bit saying you will check it out? Also - are you obliged to cover it if it's got lost in the post? Can you claim it with post office/ If so - maybe contact through ebay and say you are going to speak to post office... that way she can't leave negative feedback (or if she does you can dispute it) as you are keeping her in loop and you are trying to rectify the problem.

Did you get proof of postage. If so you can make a claim through Royal Mail, however it is up to you to refund your buyer - but I'm not sure how long you have to do this.

Thanks for your replies. The only proof of postage i got was the receipt that the post office gives you with the post code on it but i've stupidly left it at my UK home so can't do much with it!!!

I have put her off for a bit by asking her to give me a short while to find out what to do and she has replied back to me since my post saying ok, no problem.

At the end of the day it's only a very small amount to refund and it's a lesson learnt but i just don't know how i'm going to be able to refund her when my paypal account has been limited until i can get this code in the post. Do you think i should just tell her that my accounts been limited and that as soon as it's been lifted i'll refund her? DH thinks i should just refund her the cost of the item and not the postage what do you think?

Hi

You'll need to refund postage as well - I think it's part of the ebay rules.

Yeah - maybe come clean. Can you get someone in UK to write a cheque for you and post it to her - or transfer bank details?

Only prob with that is it won't show up on paypal and eby's systems...