Has Anyone Received a Coupon as Part of a Refund, When No Coupon Used in Purchase?

[tee_bee_ay]

Oh it was weird. 
I emailed a seller to advise them my item from China had not arrived almost 3 months later, and that the tracking had never updated. 

The seller immediately issued a refund and commented that the item must have been lost in the mail. So okay, thank you (I actually would have like to have them send another clock, but wasn't asked so maybe they never had them to begin with, I don't know..)

Email arrived telling me of refund to my Paypal account.  But there was a 'coupon' issued for part of my refund in USD, and the rest to my CAD PP balance.  Also this 'coupon' had no directions how to use it.

So I emailed Paypal, and they said it was eBay's problem.  I called Paypal and they said that they were directed by ebay to issue a coupon because I'd used one for the purchase.

I did no such thing, have not ever used an ebay coupon and don't know how.

Too bad for me, so sad, call ebay because nothing could be done (which is BS, I've seen Paypal do a direct deposit to my PP account while I was still on the phone with them).

So rather than arguing with this unenlightened CSR, I called ebay.

During my call to ebay support I was told there is supposed to be a code with them that you enter - but the one I received as part of my refund had no code attached to it.  I said to the CSR, 'that should be an indication to you right there that nothing about this transaction has been standard'.  No impression made.

So then the ebay CSR went and looked at my Transaction (which was March 9 - Iyou have to allow time for seagulls to fly it over from China before writing to say something is INR) and saw that Paypal issued me a coupon - so their response? 

"Well Paypal says you used a coupon, it says right there in your transaction". 

But the thing is, it didn't say that ORIGINALLY.  It only made mention of a coupon AFTER PAYPAL ISSUED IT, and you can see that they modified the original transaction to 'Refunded on May 21 2018', so the original details no longer showed the full amount from my cash purchase.

But my bank statement shows the actual amount withdrawn after US/CAD exchange).

So the ebay CSR used the Paypal mistake to validate the mistake - circular argument.

LONG STORY SHORT - anybody else receive a coupon as part of a refund, when they did not use a coupon to make the purchase??

[momcqueen]

What was the original date of the transaction? Ebay has been running incentives lately where you get 10 per cent off something or other when you spend $x. Maybe you took advantage of one of these offers and it simply slipped your mind. 

[tee_bee_ay]

It was back in early March, and I did not use a promo or coupon. Also generally when I receive a refund it is for the exact amount that was withdrawn from my bank account - this time it was less the CAD equivalent of that USD coupon. Use of a discount coupon (even if I had used one) should still give me back the actual dollars I paid out. For example, if the amount taken from my bank for original purchase was $32.51 CAD *after* any discount was applied by ebay, then that $32.51 CAD should be my refund, not $27.32 CAD.
Hope that makes it clearer.

[momcqueen]

I see. Well, that is different. You as the buyer will always lose money on currency conversion. the first time I did, I was equally as shocked and called my credit card company who agreed to throw me a bone. But that's not an ebay problem, it's a financial services problem. ebay does not control that aspect of the transaction, the bank or credit card does. You can avoid this potential problem in future by only buying items listed in your native currency so that there is no currency conversion, the financial service that provides that serve will always take a fee for doing so. Currency conversion isn't done for free, banks around the world make trillions doing it.

[momcqueen]

I cannot, however, offer a reason as to why you were issued a 'coupon' as part of your refund. Unless perhaps ebay itself issued it to you when you weren't entitled to a refund from your seller for some reason. Sometimes ebay sill step in and give back money from itself to make a problem go away. Are there extenuating circumstances to this refund?

[momcqueen]

Like, did you have to do a lot of badgering of the CSR to get it?