Issue with a refund on ebay - seller wants my paypal email address

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I bought a lamp on ebay a couple weeks ago. When it arrived, the base of the lamp was broken. I’m sure this happened in transit. The lamp was well packed but the box looked like it had been dropped. I contacted the seller, attaching pictures, and requested a refund. The seller agreed and did not want the lamp returned.

He only refunded the cost of the lamp and not the $33.00 shipping charge. I contacted him again and he said he didn’t know what happened and he would get with ebay to see how to handle it. I think he is an honest seller. His feedback is 100% positive and comments are favorable.

So today I got a message from him wanting my paypal email address so he could directly refund me from there. Is this how it should be handled? Is it safe to give him this information? I’ve never had a refund because of a damaged item so I don’t know what the process is.

2

I don’t see any problem with this. Your PayPal email address is just an address—he can’t do anything else with it without a password.

3

Thanks. It just seemed a strange way to do it. I’ve gotten refunds before because of lost items and they were straightforward through ebay.

4

It sounds like he’s having trouble handling the refund through ebay so he wants to just use paypal’s ‘send money to a friend’ feature.

Honestly, he’s the one taking the risk here since he’ll have to jump through more hoops to prove he gave you a full refund if you were to report him to ebay.

The chance of it being a scam is pretty minimal.

5

On the other hand, eBay tells you not to do anything regarding payments or refunds or returns outside of their channels, for your own protection.

I failed to follow that stricture one time, and it did not go well (although the episode has not yet concluded). I reported a problem with an item that I bought, to the seller who has a good reputation. Instead of doing a return/refund, he requested that I send the item back to him, at his expense, and he would repair it. It has been 9 weeks since he received the item, and for the past five weeks he has not been returning my messages requesting updates. I may end up eating some or all of the cost, and he still has the item (although it wasn’t worth much when I sent it back to him due to the problem it had). I am going to request a refund through eBay, but since I can’t officially return the item, I don’t know how that’s going to go.

Yes, I wuz stupid.

6

Yeah, with ebay, or any other online seller (or IRL store for that matter), you always have to be careful they’re not trying to run out the clock on your return period.

I’ve learned my lesson once or twice over the years and if I get the feeling they’re doing that, I’ll dispute the charge and they can fight with the credit card company.