Ebay refunds?

[Harry Bloomfield]

I offer a certain part for a car, modified to overcome a well known issue. I'm offering the modification as an exchange via the post, at no more than the bare cost of the materials to carry out the modification, plus the cost of postage.

To avoid the car being off the road whilst the part is away being modified, I send out the modified part first, then await the return of the old part so it can be modified for the next person. To keep costs down, for both parties I insist they pay by a paypal payment as a gift. Basically I'm doing the job as a favour to members of a car club.

The problem is that I charge £7 for the modified part, yet to buy a new part which then needs modification costs £15. Not very often, someone gets the part and then doesn't bother returning the old part to me - which then leaves me out of pocket to the tune of £15 to buy a replacement.

So I was thinking to start charging a £15 refundable deposit on the old part.

My question is - If i were to ask for two paypal payments (£7 + £15) and were to bounce the £15 back once the old part has been returned, are there any extra costs involved in bouncing a payment back to the sender, for either me or the sender? Is there any time limit on bouncing a payment back to the sender?

[Artic]

Harry Bloomfield scribbled...

Is this Ebay or not ?

A 'gift' payment on paypal costs the sender. So your £15 return could cost you £16 or more (I don't what the actual charge is) . You'd lose money on every transaction.

[Harry Bloomfield]

No, not ebay - just paypal involved. If they paid me £15 as a gift and once the old item is returned, I were to bounce the payment back, what if anything would bouncing it back cost and who would it be charged against?

[Artic]

Harry Bloomfield scribbled...

[Davidm]

I used to give postage refunds to people who bought multiple item from my listings. I just made a PayPal payment back to them, didn't cost me anything as long as I had funds in my PP account.

[The Other Mike]

There is apparently a way to do it without charges but good luck finding how. Every time I've tried it the thieves at paypal have knocked off their x % take both ways.

I first thought it was to do with retaining the deposit sum in the paypal account rather than transferring it out, but I tried that and it still took a cut. Private or business account it seem to make no difference.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

Use BACS instead.

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[Theo Markettos]

You can do a partial refund of the original transaction. Can't paste the URL, but:

Generally it's a bad plan to do something out of band - either a different transaction or by a different medium (eg BACS), because you might end up in the state where one transaction is successful (eg your refund) and the other is revoked (eg the incoming payment). Classic 419 territory.

The other thing to watch is that ebay will think the original transaction is for the higher amount (with ebay and paypal fees to match) so you'd need to adjust your prices to compensate for this.

Theo

[The Other Mike]

Yes I've seen all that, and unless it has radically changed in the past 12 months or so it *doesn't* work (buttons referred to in the paypal dialogs don't even exist)

Take two Paypal accounts, in this case one business account, the other a private account. Place funds of say £5 in the private account, by a bank transfer.

Two computers, side by side logged into these accounts.

Make a test purchase of say £1 (not via ebay but via a Paypal shopping cart) Now immediately get the seller to refund that purchase. Then make another purchase. After half a dozen transactions, with no money transferred out to bank accounts or credit cards there is less money in the purchasers account. Maybe only £4. With no money in the sellers account either.