Buyer opened an item not received case without paying

[cody_miller92]

This is bizarre so I'm just going to explain the short chain of events.

Buyer won an auction

Buyer messaged me a few hours later that he can't pay because his paypal isn't working.

I responded that's fine, and I would cancel the item within an hour or so

Buyer opened an 'item not received' case. WITHOUT PAYING. With the message 'please cancel the transaction'.

I then tried to cancel the item, which I can't do because 'there is a case open for this item'.

What exactly do I do here?

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

You have to contact eBay directly to have them manually resolve whatever the buyer did and cancel the order. The best way to do this is using the AskeBay account on Twitter or Facebook. It is their better customer service department. If you do not have either, you can make a dummy Twitter account.

Because the buyer misused the system, there isn't a way for you to resolve it properly without having someone at eBay fix it. 

I had a similar thing happen before (sort of). The buyer paid, and right after paying, they opened a return. I did not print a label or even send the item. They opened the return 30 seconds after paying with a very suspect reason. I suspect that they thought I may deny a cancellation.

I always accept cancellations because it's not worth sending someone an item they do not want, so it was very annoying that the buyer cost me a half hour of my time dealing with customer service and the issue created by the buyer, when I could have accepted a cancellation in 30 seconds.

Depending on how annoyed you are, you can also ask the eBay CSR if you should report the buyer, and which options they suggest you choose in the menu for reporting a buyer. 

[recped]

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@cody_miller92 wrote:

This is bizarre so I'm just going to explain the short chain of events.

Buyer won an auction

Buyer messaged me a few hours later that he can't pay because his paypal isn't working.

I responded that's fine, and I would cancel the item within an hour or so

Buyer opened an 'item not received' case. WITHOUT PAYING. With the message 'please cancel the transaction'.

I then tried to cancel the item, which I can't do because 'there is a case open for this item'.

What exactly do I do here?

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If it's an Not Recieved "request" or "claim/case" there should be a refund option so just do it from there.

The request will remain as part of your metrics but if this is a rare event it won't make any difference.

Most important is to take care of the buyer, you can waste time trying to get eBay to remove the metrics ding if you want.

My  concern would be to get it over and done with ASAP, the last thing you want is for the buyer to escalate and has eBay take action for you. Even if you contact eBay it may get escalated without the buyer doing anything.