Escalated Case After I Refunded Funds

[mspixiestix]

I am new to having a case opened against me (item not as described).  The description could have been written a bit clearer and I agreed that I was in the wrong and apologized to the buyer and issued her a full refund on the items and shipping the same day the case was opened.  I even told her to keep the items as 4 out of the 6 items were in the condition described in my auction.  

The refund is being issued by e-check which means it takes some time to clear.  But now that 3 days have passed, the buyer has escalated the case to eBay customer support for some reason.  What does this mean and what can I do as a seller?  She is a new eBayer too...

Thanks!

[mr.elmwood]

I "think" it means they have not received their refund as their is not guarantee an e-cheque will go through. Once the refund is completed the case should go away.

Until the e-cheque clears all the customer has is a promise of a refund.

[recped]

There will be a time limit in which you have to respond to the claim. Wait until just before the deadline or when your echeck clears and then respond by choosing "buyer has been refunded" and enter the PayPal reference number.

In future, you should either keep enough in your PayPal account to handle such situations or if you don't have a credit card attached to your PayPal account transfer funds from your bank and provide a normal (instant) refund instead of an echeck.

Giving a refund in the form of an echeck isn't a good plan, especially for Canadians where echecks take a long time to clear. Giving a buyer a refund they will have to wait 7 - 10 days for is not likely to be well recieved.

[rose-dee]

I thought I'd also note, in case you didn't understand what a Paypal eCheck was, that it is essentially the same thing as writing a personal cheque.  In this case, Paypal waits for the funds to clear your bank before depositing the money to the recipient's Paypal account.  

You may now and then run into eChecks from buyers as well.  Some buyers do not have credit cards linked to their Paypal accounts, which means there is no back-up for Paypal in the event of NSF in the buyer's own account.  Accordingly, Paypal uses the same "hold until cleared" procedure - which means you won't get your money from the sale for a few days after payment has been made by the purchaser. 

As 'recped' says, as a seller, you should either link a credit card to your Paypal account (which is a good idea anyway), or keep a cash "float" available in your Paypal account at all times, so you can refund quickly.  It's good to also remember that the money from a sale is really not yours until the transaction is fully concluded (i.e. after 45 days, the eBay claims period).  It isn't a bad idea to wait to use or transfer money from a sale until that period has passed, so you can refund the buyer immediately if necessary.  And of course, clear, complete descriptions and lots of pictures will help to avoid INAD claims.  

[arcanesiren]

What if you DO have a credit card attached to your PayPal account but it doesn't give you the option to use it? Another question-- why doesn't it give you a credit card option?