GreedBay
There’s something you need to be aware of! In short, eBay subtly makes it hard to get your final value fee credits whenever you refund a customer, and tricks you into assuming you’ll get it back.
The Refund Process
If you don’t follow all of eBay’s steps through the refund process, even if you refund the customer, you may not receive a final value fee credit. Let me explain the process when I sold on eBay:
- You need to open a sale ‘cancellation request’
- The buyer returns the item to you
- You refund the buyer
- The buyer needs to ‘accept’ the cancellation request
The Buyer Might Not Bother
If the buyer doesn’t bother completing their optional step 4, you won’t automatically receive a final value fee credit! You’ll have to wait 10 days or so to mark the case as ‘the buyer didn’t respond’ to actually receive your rightful final value fee credit. And, there is a deadline for opening cancel transaction requests – after so many days after the sale, you cannot open one, meaning you’ve lost any hope of a final value fee.
It Adds Up
I sent thousands of pounds worth of refunds to my customers without knowing this, and eBay was quietly charging me the final value fees! Please make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
Don’t Rely On eBay
Beware – despite being an oligopoly, eBay is not ethical, and you should not trust them. I’m no advocate of Amazon, but at least Amazon refunds any sale fees automatically.
This is one of the reasons I no longer sold on eBay and opened my own eCommerce store to avoid bad ethics and sale fees.
Sorry for Complaining
Probably not the most positive post you’ll ever read, but taking note of this might prevent it from happening to you.
As an eBay seller, you might want to get a copy of the Free Listing Template or Free eBay Cheat Sheet to discover other tips to improve your eBay store.
Please share this page to warn other eBay sellers so they’re made aware of this subtle eBay scam.
Best wishes,
Nick
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