A buyer that I had done business with before on eBay made a private purchase through PayPal but unfortunately only updated his eBay address and not the PayPal address when he moved out of state. Normally I’d just send a refund and have him fix the address and send another invoice but because I had heard that PayPal was keeping fees on refunds I was in a bind. I told him to call and explain the situation and see if he could either change the address or we could redo the transaction after updating the address without losing the fees. I told him I would call PayPal as well after he let me know what they said. According to the agent I spoke with on the phone, PayPal only keeps fees on refunds for new accounts and because my account was made in 2016 that I wouldn’t have to pay the fees on the refund. Sure enough, I sent the refund through the PayPal app and I didn’t have to refund the fees. This was strange to me because when I looked up the refund policy online I didn’t see anything about it only applying to new accounts. I still don’t really know what the policy is lol… is it for accounts created after a certain date or accounts under X months or years old etc. Very unclear on PayPal’s end but I’m happy I didn’t have to pay out of pocket due to the buyer’s error.
TL;DR PayPal didn’t make me pay fees when refunding a buyer because according to the agent on the phone, that policy only applies to new accounts (my account was created in 2016)
Paypal is a joke and it really depends on who you talk to. Same thing happened to me, the agent said it was IMPOSSIBLE for her to refund me, sorry. My paypal has been active since late 2015.
I actually just made a video about paypal holding hostage money I sent to someone. Crazy.
@smpratte Yeah, it’s very strange. Even after being assured by the rep on the phone I wasn’t fully convinced and made sure I wasn’t losing the fees by checking my balance before and after the refund just to be 100% certain. The transaction was for $2.3k (before fees) and when I clicked send refund they only took $2,233.30 out of my account. @jcincy101 yeah if they’re holding funds after the buyer confirmed receipt and the contents of the package were correct and functioning properly the funds should be released and the right to file a dispute should be waived. Holding funds for excessive periods of time so you can make invest and make interest off of them isn’t right, especially when you’re already being paid a significant fee to perform the transaction. Some clear cut terms and conditions regarding refund fees & holding periods would be very welcomed.
If you have any PayPal only transactions (not through eBay) that used goods and services, click on refund payment and see what it says. When I click on it in the mobile app it shows this for a different transaction as well
I had this issue for the second time yesterday. My account was created 2008 or 2009 I believe. The first time this happened I was able to get reimbursed for fees.
Yesterday the rep was giving me a hassle trying to get a refund, so I asked for a manager. It took some time but I was able to get the fees refunded this way - I think he was just tired of listening to me. You can bet I will call in every time and sit my phone on speaker at my desk while working for future issues as well.
Something I did learn is that you can have you buyer open a case against you and paypal is forced to refund the fees that way. I guess that is similar to ebay where if the buyer opens a returns request after the 30 day limit on cancelling fees you can still get your FVF credit back. There are probably other ways around to get the fees backs, we just have to get the info out there.
It is all completely ridiculous. I talked for a while afterwards with the manager and he tried saying it was because they get hit with the credit card processing fees. That may be the case sometimes, but we all know most of the time it is either PP to PP from the balance or bank withdrawal. I doubt they will listen though, I still can’t even have a basic phone call into paypal without them verbally stating my paypal balance as if I want anyone around me to over hear that.
@thecharizardauthorty so you’re saying if you have the buyer file for a refund through PayPal then PayPal covers the fees? Because on their site it says that “When you receive a payment, you are liable to PayPal for the full amount of the payment sent to you plus any fees if the payment is later invalidated or reversed for any reason.” And then goes to list various reasons that would cause payment invalidation or reversal with “unauthorized payment” being the most common claim I’m assuming. I’m curious what your buyer used for the reason of the refund request, perhaps that plays a factor. And with regards to them saying they do it to cover CC fees, they’re still ripping people off. You could try to justify keeping the fee when the transaction was done via credit card because CC fees are usually between 1.5-3.5% or so but even then customers will still be upset about that business practice. The fact that they’re doing it on transactions that weren’t done via CC means they’re literally just making extra money for no reason.
Reversals are unauthorized transactions. I would assume requesting a refund for regular reasons that would be opened through the resolution message center would do the trick. Reversals usually have a $20 chargeback fee.
I have not tested this yet as I plan to have Paypal refund the fees every time before I issue the refund, even if I am tying up the phone line. If that every becomes a losing battle I will give it a go and try the case route.
The new policies have pushed me to change up my payments. I have started accepting FF and pushing for bank wires for certain situations since I dont seem to be getting PP’s coverage anyways. The main benefit other than coverage was ease of taxes at the end of the year, but I can competently keep up with my own transaction anyways.
@thecharizardauthorty they have a few other reasons listed for payments being reversed and invalidated in addition to the unauthorized transaction claim such as: losing a claim submitted by a buyer, no proof of shipment/delivery, buyer filing a chargeback for a transaction that isn’t covered by seller protection, eBay decides against you under their money back guarantee, investigation of a bank reversal finds that the transaction was fraudulent, PayPal sent the payment in error or payment was received for activities that violate user agreement with PayPal. Also, this is copied straight from the site, “If you refund a payment for goods or services, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid as the seller are not returned to you. The amount of the refunded payment will be deducted from your PayPal account.” This is also on the site, “If you receive a payment for selling goods or services that is later refunded or invalidated for any reason, you are responsible for the full amount of the payment sent to you plus any fees…” And I will do the same thing with calling them if I have an issue on a refund when I fulfilled my end of the transaction and the issue is being caused due to the buyer’s own fault. There’s no way I’m paying money for a mistake made by the buyer. Even for a small amount of money I’m willing to fight that out of principle. For now, however, it appears that when I click on refund payment on various transactions it shows that PayPal will refund the fee (as seen in the image above) so there doesn’t appear to be an issue as of now.
TLDR: the more I read their policies, talk to agents on the phone, and hear contradictory stories online about PayPal the more confused I get.
