February 26th, 2014 Weekly Board Hour

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi everyone - we're looking forward to your questions at 1PM Eastern!

[rose-dee]

Hi Kalvin!  I wanted to revisit a discussion we had last week about the "partially refunded" transactions.  With apologies, I'm copying the text here - my question is at the end:

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Hi rose-dee,

Great question - I checked it out on eBay.com & it looks like the partial dollar sign is in fact there. I'd venture to say that you were likely on eBay.com (without Selling Manager view) and saw this. On eBay.ca, you wouldn't see that partial payment indicator.

Thanks, 

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No, Kalvin, I was definitely on eBay.ca, no doubt whatsoever -- that's where I "live" -- and the partial dollar sign was definitely shown.  The problem was what came up when I moused over it -- "Unpaid".  I'm certain the partial dollar sign used to show a message saying "Partially Refunded". 

In addition, when I went into the transaction record, I got a bizarre pop-up message saying something along the lines of "The total deducted can't be more than the item price".  This made no sense at all, since the refunded shipping amount was far below the total the buyer paid.  I'm sorry, I wish I'd taken a screen shot of these.  Maybe next time it occurs, can I contact you? 

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I'd be curious to quickly check it out now, actually. Mind giving me an item number in your My eBay right now so I can check it out? Also, is this is regular My eBay view or through Selling Manager?

Thanks,

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Thanks Kalvin - I hope there's time here to do this.  The item number was 171239841881.  When I just moused over the dollar sign icon, I see a message saying "You marked this item as paid; This item was partially paid on Feb. 18th" (my bold print). 

Now, because I've already manually tried to fix this, you won't see the partial dollar sign icon as it was before I made the manual changes.  However, the current information really doesn't reflect the true situation, which was that the item + shipping was fully paid by the buyer on Feb. 18th and partially refunded by me. 

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Ok, I see what you're saying. I'm not entirely sure about the 'Partial refund' indicator, but the half dollar sign is appearing on eBay.ca if you're viewing out of Selling Manager. 'Partial refund' vs 'Partial payment received' are also very synonymous - seems like situations where this wouldn't fit would be minimal.

Thanks,

[rose-dee]

I just took a closer look at the Order Details page for the transaction in question above, and here is what it shows (which doesn't correctly reflect the original transaction at all -- there was no $29 "Seller charge", but rather an original shipping amount of, as I recall, $15.75.  The refund is recorded, but not correctly against the original item total -- a bit of a mess for accounting purposes):

Subtotal:	US $180.00
Shipping & handling:	FREE
Seller discounts (-) or charges (+):	+US $29.00
Total	US $209.00
Paid:	US $180.00
Refunded:	US $29.00

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Hi rose-dee,

Here's the help page on icons: http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/myebay-icons.html 

As you can see, the partial dollar sign indicates 'partial payment' which also means partial refund. If you're concerned about keeping track of partial payments vs partial refunds, please use the Notes function to indicate which is which in your My eBay. Your PayPal transactions history & an email notification to the Buyer will confirm to both parties that a partial refund was sent.

As for the order details, I can see what you mean, but isn't a huge issue at this point. You're more than welcome to drop an email to suggestions@ebay.ca so we can log that idea.

Thanks,

[rose-dee]

So I assume from this that eBay must have made a change to the text that appears when you mouse over the "Half-dollar-sign" icon. 

A few months ago, when I refunded some of the shipping cost on one item out of a multiple purchase where the buyer had already paid both the item price and the full shipping on all items, I would see the "Half-dollar" icon, and on mousing over it, a message that said "Partially Refunded".  The refund was correctly reflected on the transaction details page. 

Now the icon indicates "Partially Paid".  Is this what the buyer sees too?  If I were the buyer, I might get rather upset at seeing I'd only partially paid, when I'd actually paid in full.

This is important to me, since I frequently give my buyers a break on shipping.  It's no problem if they request an invoice first on multiple purchases, but it appears to be a problem when I try to refund after the fact, i.e. if they pay for everything (including all shipping charges on all items) immediately. 

I think the best thing for me to do is to take a screen shot and/or send you the item number the next time this comes up (which it will).  Would you mind?

[rose-dee]

Kalvin, I'm sorry, but the link you posted above doesn't appear to be functional -- it generates an error message.

[pjcdn2005]

There have been a number of posts on the board about the sold view on my ebay page. It no longer shows the buyers name which at times, can make things confusing. Is this just a temporary  glitch?

[rose-dee]

You know I'm wondering if this issue may possibly be related to the problems sellers have been reporting in the last two weeks with US buyers being unable to make and pay for multiple purchases?  It just occurred to me that both of the (US)  buyers that I recently refunded paid for each of their items individually.

I'm not trying to make an issue out of a non-existent problem, but I am mostly concerned about what the buyers are seeing from their end.

Thanks.

[kalvin@ebay.com]

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@rose-dee wrote:

So I assume from this that eBay must have made a change to the text that appears when you mouse over the "Half-dollar-sign" icon. 

A few months ago, when I refunded some of the shipping cost on one item out of a multiple purchase where the buyer had already paid both the item price and the full shipping on all items, I would see the "Half-dollar" icon, and on mousing over it, a message that said "Partially Refunded".  The refund was correctly reflected on the transaction details page. 

Now the icon indicates "Partially Paid".  Is this what the buyer sees too?  If I were the buyer, I might get rather upset at seeing I'd only partially paid, when I'd actually paid in full.

This is important to me, since I frequently give my buyers a break on shipping.  It's no problem if they request an invoice first on multiple purchases, but it appears to be a problem when I try to refund after the fact, i.e. if they pay for everything (including all shipping charges on all items) immediately. 

I think the best thing for me to do is to take a screen shot and/or send you the item number the next time this comes up (which it will).  Would you mind?

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The last time we made changes to the Help page was in 2010. We'll usually update these pages at the same time feature changes happen. That said, this is confirmation that no changes to the wording were made as of late. And yes, the same indication appears on the Buyer's end of the item being partially paid, not being partially refunded.

[rose-dee]

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kalvin@ebay.com wrote:

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The last time we made changes to the Help page was in 2010. We'll usually update these pages at the same time feature changes happen. That said, this is confirmation that no changes to the wording were made as of late. And yes, the same indication appears on the Buyer's end of the item being partially paid, not being partially refunded.

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Thanks Kalvin, but I wasn't referring to the "Help" pages; rather to the way the "Half-dollar sign" generates a mouse-over message. 

I have to say I'm stunned that eBay would consider "partially refunded" the same thing as "partially paid".  They are two entirely different accounting concepts! 

If you received an invoice from your telephone company after paying the bill in full and it was marked "Partially Paid" (even if they had given you a discount or refund), I think you'd be pretty upset.  And I wouldn't blame an eBay buyer for being just as upset. 

Now I'm really concerned -- if this is what my buyers are seeing on their end when I give them a courtesy refund of shipping, what are they going to think of me?  That I kindly gave them some of their money back, then marked the item only partially paid?  Wow, this is trouble.