Interesting Ebay Problem - Buyer Wants To Return Refund

I had the same problem. A customer opened a case and wanted his money since the stamps didn't arrive. I was just about to refund him when he said he finally got it and all was good. Well ebay decided for some reason that time was up and refunded him his money two days later, even after the case correspondence showed he got the stamps and was happy! The case got closed and was very difficult to reopen for a review. The first person I talked to said I was too late in my appeal and there was nothing they could do. I would have to take it up directly with the customer to resolve. I protested again and this time a got a manager on the phone and he saw how that ebay was a fault and reversed the refund. As for getting customer emails, ebay now hides the customers personal email and gives them an ebay email.

djstamps:

and anyone interested

When you relist something with the goal of directing it to a specific buyer, I would suggest that you DO NOT list it with the Buy-it-Now at the agreed upon price, but list it at an abnormally high price and include the Best Offer option. The buyer can then make his offer at the agreed price, and the seller can complete the transaction.

On several occasions when I have tried to work this with a seller, a third party happened to spot the item and jumped in and made the purchase before I could get to it, leaving me out in the cold.

mml1942:

"When you relist something with the goal of directing it to a specific buyer, I would suggest that you DO NOT list it with the Buy-it-Now at the agreed upon price, but list it at an abnormally high price and include the Best Offer option. The buyer can then make his offer at the agreed price, and the seller can complete the transaction."

I have to agree that this is by far the best way to do a direct sale.
As a seller I have been doing it like this for quite some time and have not had anybody else buy it out from the intended buyer.

As a buyer, I have tried to explain this to some sellers, but for some reason some either don't or can't do it this way.

Just a couple of days ago, I agreed with a seller to purchase something for $80. I advised him to do a listing with a BIN for $150 with a best offer.
For some reason it sounded like he couldn't or didn't know how so he ended up doing an auction with a $60 start and BIN $80. Luckily I still got it anyway. I wonder if you don't have a store and if you are using the phone app. Maybe it's not possible this way, I have never used the app because it is extremely limited, and in my opinion almost useless. As it happens I don't even use ebay to list my items, so maybe I'm a little spoiled.

You would think with ebay being so paranoid about people doing a transaction off of ebay, that they would provide a way to do a direct transaction without having to jump through hoops. Whoops! sorry I forgot logic is not in ebay's vocabulary

This episode ended uneventfully, ebay allowed my email address to go through and the buyer used it to send me the appropriate funds. I call ebay quite often and I always ask them to make a record of our conversation so that I can refer back to it in any subsequent actions. I don't know if that helped in this case or not.

The suggestion to download ebay reports regularly to retain customer emails was interesting but I don't know if ebay shows the real email anywhere anymore. I use Sixbit auction software and from this I have a database going back to 2012 and it contains names addresses and email of every customer, but sometime in the recent past the database started showing the email address ebay assigns not the real one.

The Business card idea was interesting but it's not something I would ever consider. I have good customer relations with many of my repeat customers but it's all through the ebay messaging system. I don't want people calling me up! It would take up a lot of my time and I really want a record of questions and answers which the ebay messaging system provides. Call me an old curmudgeon but there it is. IMO ebay provides a totally different way of doing business and to try and meld the old bricks and mortar model with ebay doesn't work, at least for me.

Ken

Several folks above referenced a similar solution, but as a buyer when this happened; I suggested he put a total junker of a stamp on sale for the amount we agreed I owed him, and I simply bought that fictitious listing.

ALWAYS include your email address with your shipments !!!

Hey, Ken, I have recently joined this community and found you listed. Thanks for the nice comments about our refund of the refund issue. I just got the latest lot I purchased from you. Glad to be considered a good customer.

Bobby

Welcome to the forum, there is a lot to learn here. One thing I always found interesting is that unless folks use IDs here that are similiar to their ebay ID or they identify themselves I never know if they're customers.