eBay locked account, PayPal automatically refunded buyer for sold (and delivered) item

[cecesco]

Hi there,

I'm not sure what forum this falls under - please redirect me to the right one if I've gotten it wrong!

I recently moved from the UK to Europe, and put an item for sale online. It was up for at least a week without any problems, and a buyer bought the item and I received the money through PayPal and delivered the item. All good.

I logged in through another device a few days ago, and this probably triggered a security issue in eBay - yesterday, my eBay account was locked, the item which was sold was removed from my listings (as well as another I had just put up) and the buyer was refunded the money through PayPal, even though it was already sent. This seemed to be a very strict reactive measure (the money on PayPal wasn't put on hold and I wasn't given any prompt to verify myself as I was logging in).

In any case, I managed to reactivate my account and contacted the buyer to let them know the situation and that the item is on the way to them, even though they received a refund (no reply as yet). I also contacted eBay and they gave me a story that I technically couldn't use my existing account anymore (even though I had changed my registered country to the new one) and would have to make a completely new account to buy and sell here as all my past transactions were in the UK, and each time it'd trigger a security warning. They also said they would contact PayPal to make the funds available to me and they would relist the other active listing I had (I said I preferred to keep my current account active anyway).

I've not seen any change in the status of the funds (and the active listing is still nowhere to be found). I have no evidence to have confidence in eBay's support and I can't find any better way to contact PayPal to address the situation. Ultimately, and I'm not sure who I should contact to fix this - does anyone have advice? Thanks for any ideas in advance!

[kernowlass]

@cecesco 

Paypal is country specific so if you move countries you have to open another paypal account in the country you reside in and add an address / phone number / bank accounts / cards from within that country.

You should really withdraw any funds / resolve issues / remove cards and bank accounts before you move countries. If you don't then you may have problems doing so once you have moved and may need to contact customer services for help to resolve things.

Once a refund has been issued to a buyer you can't reverse it. All you can do is ask her to send the money again to your NEW paypal account once you have opened it but you can't force her to do so.