Well first you are not talking to eBay management here, but to your fellow members.
Do you refund the money that I am going to pay for the shipping?
No. Neither eBay nor Paypal will refund your return shipping.
There are two reasons for this.
The first is the "WalMart" reason. If you buy a dress for your child and when you get it home, it does not fit, WM will not pay for your time and gas to return it. Nor will eBay pay for your postage to return the unwanted item to the seller.
The second reason is that eBay/PP does not have the money you will pay for the postage. They handled only the money that you sent the seller.
If you paid by cash or cheque, they would not even refund that because they never handled your payment at all.
However, the seller may, at her discretion, refund the return shipping. Usually this is done when the seller agrees that the error was on her part, in description or packaging, causing the received item to be Not As Described.
And another however, the seller will not do this in cases of Buyer Remorse.
For example, you order a red sweater. The sweater that arrives is blue. This is a seller error. But if the sweater that arrives is scarlet and you thought it would be cherry, that is considered Buyer Remorse.
Further, the seller is not supposed to use shipping as a profit centre, so all the money you gave for shipping went to the postal system and will not be refunded by them to the seller. This usually does not bother buyers, but is a concern to sellers.
So your first step is to contact your seller, explain politely the problem and ask how she thinks it can be resolved. The likely answer is "return for a full refund". Normally this will mean a refund of the money you paid for the item. However, on receiving the item back , the seller may decide to refund the return shipping as well.
And a complication. When you return the item, you must use Delivery Confirmation to prove that the seller did in fact get the item back. Neither of you can ethically have both the item and the money.
If the seller is in Canada, that would be either Regular or Expedited shipping. That can run $12 or so.
If the seller is in the USA that would be Expedited USA, which can run $8 to $20.
But if the seller is overseas, that would be ExpressPost which starts around $40. So if your seller is in China, just stop now.
In addition to requests for a refund on return, you also have feedback as a tool .
The most effective feedback is calm and factual.
