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Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

OK let me explain in the shortest way possible..

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Let me begin, thankfully this customer paid with just paypal. not through ebay.

item is a made to order item. Customer paid, 1 day later, emailed and said he "might" want to cancel. He asked if he placed order and it arrived and turns out he dont like it, if he return it, is there a restock fee?

I said there would be a 20% restock fee which he agreed to.

I said to him, however, if he wants to cancel now, its just a 5% cancellation fee.

He said, I am killing him with 5%... He said ok, he will continue with order.

a few days later, he emailed and said he wish to cancel AGAIN! I said no problem. Cancelled but as no choice, it was almost finished with production, I had to charge 20% to cover costs and everything, being a made to order item, it is likely to sit on the shelf for many months. sometimes, it sits for 1-2 years and have to reduce like 30% to sell.

So thank you so much to this customer...

He now disputed payment as he wants full refund. I have a few options on paypal:

-offer full refund
-provide tracking
-proof that buyer already been refuned.

What are my option guys? I obviously want to keep 20% to cover my loss...

Many thanks.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

If this were me, I would go back and take screenshots of all the correspondence I've had with the buyer up to this point. Once all my evidence is in order I would call Paypal and politely explain the situation, to find out what my options while not breaking any of Paypal's rules.

It sounds like you've thoroughly explained your terms to the buyer, so there's a chance Paypal will side with you in this instance. It's not guaranteed since they tend to side with customers but it's worth a shot!

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Thanks for your input on this, appreciate it. and will give it a shot to see where this will lead me.

dealing with customers these days is like battling with alligators....

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

I hate to say it but your going to really struggle to win this one.

PayPal are more than likely to side with the buyer if is gets raised to them. That is just how PayPal UK and how UK law is these days.

Because the item has not yet been delivered to the custom according to UK law they are entitled to a full refund. You would only get protection in the law for custom items after the item itself is delivered, then the buyer would only be able to ask for a refund if the item was faulty (although its a bit more complex than that)

You may want to just refund this buyer and mark it up as a loss. PayPal will side with them if it gets that far which can put your account at risk (as unfair as that may seem) so sometimes its better to just swear a lot under your breath and then hit the refund button in situations like this.

Of course you can give it a go and see if you can get PayPal to side with you, but generally getting that far is something I personally try to avoid.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Cheers on this one James , I know what you mean, battling with ebay or paypal is never a good idea I guess. Will sit down and have a think, probably like you said, might just have to bit the bullet on this one.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Your terms of sale mean nothing on EB or PP. Their terms over-ride yours.

And they say the buyer will get all his money back most of the time.

There's dozens of ways for this guy to punish you if you try to force him to go through with the deal, from complaining it arrived broken and sending you back a box of rocks and still getting a refund, to countless other painful and expensive acts.

It stinks. But the best thing for you is to move on and call this one a loss. Don't throw good money after bad.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Thanks for advising me on this one. I think after a bit of a think, I will just have to accept the loss. Shouldnt really risk my paypal account really.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Accept, move on and BLOCK this buyer. The point of stealth is to really not get ebay and paypal involved...(If it is indeed a stealth account)

I usually contact them only once I feel a major injustice has been done, but not for a cancellation of an order. Just count your blessings that they leave positive or no feedback for the transaction.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

It hurts but long term its the best solution :thumb:

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

It's a cost of doing business - Use your eBay blocked list.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Thanks for all the input, I accepted the loss and move on now. But just getting quite pissed off really with all these wankers, that is all.. but nice to share with someone online to relief that anger. lol

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Did the pants get returned OK.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

When you sell in UK, buyers can request full refund including the outgoing postage if they ask for a return. Only in that way you can get the final value fee back. This is a terrible policy for all these small sellers as not so many sellers can have this budget to ship it out only for buyers to try it. And as I know, UK buyers pretty like to so.

I have a friend lives in London, when I visited her couple of years ago, I noticed whenever she's going to attend an event, she just go to shop a dress and carefully fold the tags inside the dress, after the event, she returned it back. And a lot of her friends are doing the same.

Sometimes those kind of stupid policies encourages those kind of terrible buyers.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Isnt it the same on USA ebay/amazon and shops?

I agree though, you can easily lose money when you seller an item and it gets returned, and if the buyer also does not want to pay return postage they will say SNAD and get a free label too!!

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

That's not the same in US ebay.

First of all, you have option that "return is not accepted". In UK as a business seller, all buy for now items are forced to accept return.

Second, when buyer wants to return just because they changed the mind/item doesn't fit, the outgoing postage will be on buyer's cost, when you refund them on ebay, you have option to choose "postage" refund or not. Ebay will credit you back the associated final value fee based on how much you refund the buyer.

On UK ebay, you only have one option which is full refund including outgoing postage. If you choose partial refund, ebay won't let you have the associated final value fee.

To be honest the ebay UK policy is totally a nightmare for sellers. Especially low budget small sellers. Your profit will be spent on those postage for returns.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

In the US there is no such thing as 'return not accepted' on EB or PP.

And a buyer being honest about changing his or her mind is almost unheard of.

99% of the time returns are marked SNAD so the seller HAS to pay return shipping.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

It's my first time to hear this.

Just checked again my listings in US site, all of them are "return not accepted".

Are you opening a store in US site? I'm not familiar with the US ebay store policy. But if you don't have a US ebay store, you do have the option to choose "return not accepted", and buyer's pay for the outgoing postage.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

i guess you havent been selling on ebay for much time. ebay will make sellers return any item they sell.

You know that any ebay buyer can give any reason for a return. I can say that the item is counterfiet and just keep it on most occasions, even without proof sent to ebay.

Re: Restock fee - buyer wants full refund!!!!
 

Selling on ebay since 2007, 5 years with my real account, 5 years with stealth.

Never ever ever had a problem with US buyers.

All my US listings are "return not accepted" and buyer pays for return postage.

Unless item has an issue: broken/wrong item sent etc, buyer never opened any return request.

Once or twice some buyers request a return because they changed the mind, I rejected, then they left negative nasty feedbacks. But after I talked with ebay and show them the proof of the closed return case, ebay removed them.

The only headache is buyers in UK or Europe.