What if I refuse to refund?

[bigpaws]

I sold an item on 09/12/12. Of course I posted the item. Haven't heard from the buyer, however eBay have just contacted me to say this buyer had raised a case as the item wasn't received. It also states the buyer has claimed to contact me - which they haven't. The buyer wants a refund!!!?!

I have tried to read their feedback, but it says 'person has chosen to keep their feedback private'.

What do I do? It has been 20 days since the sale. They haven't contacted me directly like they claim. My suspicion is they have been wearing the item and found another in the half price sale.

Will my penalty just be negative feedback if I choose to ignore the complaint? Or should I refund the £13 and be pissed off?!

If a case has been opened, has eBay asked you to enter proof of postage? Either a tracking number, if you have one, or a scan of a certificate of posting?

If you don't have either, the case will go in the buyers favour. So eBay will then instruct you to refund. If you don't, they'll refund for you, and remove the funds from your Paypal account, or if there is no funds in there, your bank account.

If they aren't successful in retrieving the money, they work with a number of debt collection agencies. There have been a few high profile cases of eBay chasing people over tiny amounts that are owed.

So the worst case scenario would be a ruined credit rating, and a banned eBay account. The best would be that they do nothing, but that's incredibly unlikely.

If you haven't yet responded to the case, make sure you do so. Mention that it has been 20 days since the sale, and that the buyer has made no contact with you.

eBay may ignore it, but they might take it into account, and if they do it makes the buyers story look rather suspicious.

I have made contact with the buyer following ebay contacting me. Maybe I should also contact eBay like you have suggested?

So annoying how people get away with this. I am annoyed I can't see their feedback. Sounds suspicious in itself?!

you will just have to refund and claim from royal mail for the lost item - you can't refuse to refund, ebay will force you to

Unless you have online proof of delivery with a tracking number, in which case enter that into the dispute

Royal Mail will only refund the cost of delivery. They won't refund for the item value.

Royal Mail will give the cost of the lost item

If you have proof of postage and evidence of the item's intrinsic value, Royal Mail will refund the actual value - but only 3 weeks after the expected delivery date. If you have no proof of postage you will have to refund the buyer and will not be able to get anything back off Royal Mail.

I recently had a similar incident - with annoying results. Buyer notified they hadn't received item, I asked her if she could let me see if parcel returned and asked for 7 days for it to arrive either way. She didn't and opened a not received case. Then disappeared off the face of the earth, no replies to emails, nothing.

One month later guess what arrives back to me - the buyer didn't collect it from the post office two days after I sent it. Just basically didn't bother.

She got refunded, I complained to eBay that I thought she was a very unhelpful ebayer - but no action was taken. All in all very very frustrating.

I have got proof of postage which I can claim delivery cost back, however I don't have a receipt for the value of the item, so I'll lose out on my £9.
Really annoyed about it. eBay shouldn't allow people to hide their feedback - this person could be doing this numerous times over.

A print off showing how much the item sold for on eBay will be sufficient for Royal Mail.

Mnistooaddictive - that is really helpful advice. Thank you so much. I will get a claim form from the post office. I never thought about printing the evidence/value off eBay.

Scan your POP and email it to eBay/paypal, their should be a way to add it as evidence to the dispute.
Then you can tell them that you are filing a claim with royal mail, they will not make you refund until you have received your refund from RM.

proof of postage is not proof of delivery so is worthless in a dispute, it is only useful for claiming with royal mail. And ebay will make you refund whether you claim from royal mail or not - you have no choice once a dispute has been escalated.

I have on more than one occasion used my POP to win a INR case.

really?? But ebay want proof of delivery not proof of postage. Maybe they gave the buyer a no fault refund, but a buyer would not be expected to lose their money if a seller has no proof of actual delivery.

I had a case just a couple of months ago where a woman bought an item from me, then a couple of weeks later she filed a dispute against me without even contacting me, claiming that she never received the item.
I scanned and emailed my POP and they closed the case in my favour.

I am more than happy to file a claim with royal mail if an item is lost, and have done several times, but I don?t allow refunds before I have had the refund from royal mail.

I decided the best thing was to give the refund. I did have slight satisfaction in adding a comment of 'refund reluctantly given'.
I have also sent in a lost item claim form to the Royal Mail. I included a copy of the eBay sale sheet. See what happens......