Cancelling a Transaction

[dealerguy]

I have a buyer who wants to cancel a transaction and I am supposed to "refund" them. The problem is they did not pay so how can I refund? How do I make sure they have paid? Happening a lot lately  (2x last week), is this a eBay "glitch" that you can buy, not pay AND GET REFUNDED????

[ricarmic]

If you look at the item or in myebay or whatever you can see whether it is paid or not yet paid.

If they haven't paid when you go to cancel the transaction it just cancels it, there is no refund because they didn't pay.

If they have paid then it will automagically be refunded when you cancel it.

Make sure in either case you choose the reason "buyer changed their mind" so it does not count against you.

(So the answer to your last question is NO they cannot get money refunded if they have not paid*).

*Note yesterday at least, ebay email notifications for sold items were not sent, but you can still tell by going into the item or looking at it in myebay etc to see if it was paid for.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

You cancel through your eBay sold listings page. 

Under the actions tab there is a drop down menu with an arrow, click cancel order, and then click 'buyer asked to cancel'. If the person has paid you, it will refund them. If they haven't paid, they won't be refunded. 

After 5 days, you can also use the same cancel function and choose the reason 'the buyer hasn't paid'. The buyer will get a strike against their account if you do it this way. This is more for if a buyer hasn't communicated and just never paid, but it's really up to each seller how aggressively they want to use that. 

I would recommend making it so that your items require immediate payment. Unfortunately, there is no way to require immediate payment when a best offer is sent, but this at least curbs some of the hassle of unpaying bidders.

In short, just cancel through the cancel function on the eBay site. If someone is asking you to send them a payment directly to their Paypal or something like that, it might be a scam. If you're still unsure, you should call eBay's customer service line.