eBay

wecango88 · ‎04-10-2025

I received a random refund today on the FVFs for 3 records that I sold months ago. Any idea what error caused this? I received no email from eBay about why this refund was issued. Thanks!

ricarmic · ‎04-10-2025

With how hard it is to understand all the pieces online over the last 25+ years, my strategy is:

1) If they're giving me money and I don't understand why, I smile and forget about it.

2) If they take money away from me and I don't understand why, I ask questions/investigate.

My best story is PAYPAL a long time ago before MP came into place they gave me a lump of nearly $2,000 they said because they'd been charging the wrong (higher commission) rate when I was converting $US to $C. I followed strategy 1) but I will admit the smile was a lot bigger than normal 😀

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-10-2025

@ricarmic wrote:
With how hard it is to understand all the pieces online over the last 25+ years, my strategy is:

1) If they're giving me money and I don't understand why, I smile and forget about it.

2) If they take money away from me and I don't understand why, I ask questions/investigate.

My best story is PAYPAL a long time ago before MP came into place they gave me a lump of nearly $2,000 they said because they'd been charging the wrong (higher commission) rate when I was converting $US to $C. I followed strategy 1) but I will admit the smile was a lot bigger than normal 😀

@ricarmic

How often do you, if ever get correction to the good from eBay? PayPal I can rationalize. They had excellent accounting practices, documentation and customer service to back it up.

ricarmic · ‎04-10-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies I believe I've had the same thing as OP at least once, a while ago though.... as I mentioned, as long as it's not "red" on the payment summary tab, I don't care.

I guess I should include an addendum though that if I started to regularly see these, it would infer that something is being done wrong repeatedly and fixed repeatedly, I might investigate in that situation. We all know there are lots of glitches and will continue to be (keeping in mind this site is probably running on "legacy code" now, which makes me chuckle as we tend to think of the online world as "new" but anyway) so there will be problems and fixes "forever"....

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-10-2025

@ricarmic wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies I believe I've had the same thing as OP at least once, a while ago though.... as I mentioned, as long as it's not "red" on the payment summary tab, I don't care.

I guess I should include an addendum though that if I started to regularly see these, it would infer that something is being done wrong repeatedly and fixed repeatedly, I might investigate in that situation. We all know there are lots of glitches and will continue to be (keeping in mind this site is probably running on "legacy code" now, which makes me chuckle as we tend to think of the online world as "new" but anyway) so there will be problems and fixes "forever"....

@ricarmic

I've posted in the past if anyone has ever seen a similar situation where they were getting credits from eBay either small or large. There was limited in the way of takers or responses. It's had to of happened. We had this recent one where eBay did some kind of internal audit and figured out shipping labels from 3 months past got missed. It would be nice to know if actual audits are being done, especially with these + and -'s that never include an explanation or backup documentation.

And we have all seen where something has been posted about a large amount being "held hostage" by ebay and how difficult for a user to get those funds released. Why sadly it is super important that users have their ducks in the row in the unfortunate case something happens to user and there is no back up person that can assist with explaining to ebay what happened. As far as I've read in the eBay TOS there is nothing even in place if something did happen to a user. They would still be on the hook for who knows how long for store fees for example until the end of any contract.

There was a recent report on the news about a hydro customer in Ont. that accidentally forgot to put in the decimal when making a payment. 95.84 became 9584.00. It took them 2 + weeks to get it undone with some major pushing from the news station. It shouldn't be that way and this was where it was user mistake. eBay is definitely not perfect but needs proper procedures in place to resolve internal errors. (I am not suggesting free listings as a 1 size fits all solution.Users want THEIR money back when owed in a timely user friendly manner.)

But congrats on your windfall. Did it come with a documented explanation, apology or interest for their faux pas and your inconvenience? Betting your situation is exception vs the rule. We should all be soooo lucky!!!!

ricarmic · ‎04-10-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies

The ebay one was just a refund no other documentation - it was small, like under $5.*

If you remember back to the good old days the PAYPAL convversion rate got better the more US$$$ you converted at a time. I was waiting and saving up to transfer larger amounts (like once a month) to get the best rates. I was keeping an eye on the rate I was getting and didn't think anything was amiss, but anyway that is what they said, they'd not properly taken into account the right level when the conversions were done and had underpaid me. I wasn't going to argue that one!

*Keep in mind that I do NOT spend much time watching the summary details, when I do I'm looking at the "reds", so if I got other ebay pluses, they could easily have slipped by....

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-10-2025

@ricarmic wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies

The ebay one was just a refund no other documentation - it was small, like under $5.*

If you remember back to the good old days the PAYPAL convversion rate got better the more US$$$ you converted at a time. I was waiting and saving up to transfer larger amounts (like once a month) to get the best rates. I was keeping an eye on the rate I was getting and didn't think anything was amiss, but anyway that is what they said, they'd not properly taken into account the right level when the conversions were done and had underpaid me. I wasn't going to argue that one!

*Keep in mind that I do NOT spend much time watching the summary details, when I do I'm looking at the "reds", so if I got other ebay pluses, they could easily have slipped by....

The only thing I monitor super closely are the eBay labels processing due to the erratic schedule they seem to go thru. I rarely had discrepancies on postage when I used PayPal. Same went for Shippo. Getting detailed explanations on ebay postage might be just wishful thinking at this point. There seems to be no plan to release this info to sellers.

When I have had a discrepancy with eBay that I could document it usually took major pushing to get a credit and rarely in a timely manner. 24 to 48 hours turns into 2 to 3 weeks. In many of those cases it was less about admitting wrong vs getting user off the phone.

There are probably times when sellers are being charged wrong rates for selling fees based on categories but that is a combination of issues. Both seller and eBay. Long story short any UPCHARGES/CREDITS should include documention. That is a business standard. Same goes for exchange and tax rate %'s.

ricarmic · ‎04-10-2025

I'm "lucky" because I'm a stamps on the box kinda guy so I don't have the multitude of ebay etc shipping transactions that others have.

I also don't have nearly the official savings opportunities either, but discounted valid postage helps. Because it is "blasphemous" to send packages to a stamp collector without stamps on the parcel (at least semi-old timers like me believe that) I don't see me doing anything else in the foreseeable future.