Facebook/Meta will NOT allow you to do partial refunds

[Francisco_MW]

I just want to give everyone a head's up about partial refunds on Meta/Facebook.

I had a customer who made a purchase for 4 items and decided to return 2. The customer never reached out to me this was all done via Meta. I reached out to the customer and notified them that they would have to return the items in order for me refund them which they were okay with, and that they would be responsible for the shipping. Customer sent back the two items but when it came time to offer the refund, I kept getting an error and had to contact Shopify for help. I let the customer know I received the items but was having an issue with processing the refund. I would let them know when the issue was resolved. Apparently the issue was due to the refund amount not being equal to the order amount (since it was a partial refund). We tried multiple solutions which didn't work, and was even told to contact Meta who created a ticket and didn't get back to me.

After a few days I was getting tired of having to apologize since I was not able to process the refund. Since the customer paid via Paypal, I decided I was going to refund them directly via PayPal. I contacted Shopify ahead of time to make sure this was okay. Once it was confirmed this was okay, I offered the refund and Shopify helped me close out the order so it wouldn't look like I still owed a refund on an order. I notified Meta right afterwards to let them know, the issue was resolved. "I let the customer know I would be refunding them via PayPal, I did so and closed the order on Shopify, you can close your ticket since this issue resolved but you should look into this issue since I had to use a workaround to issue a refund".

A week later (today) I get a message from Meta letting me know they gave a full refund! I look at my account and they deducted the full refund from my PayPal account. The customer essentially got two free items and I paid them! I let Meta know that I sent them a message last week letting them know the issue was resolved and I can provide proof that I already issued a refund. They asked for a screenshot, and cut me off mid sentence once they saw the screenshot and didnt respond to any of my questions (I get an auto response letting me know someone will get back to me, the same message I received when I originally notified them that the issue was resolved). I let Shopify know what happened and I was asked to give Meta time to respond before it gets escalated.

Im not sure how long this will take to resolve but I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that this could become a problem for them if a customer wants a return/refund on a Meta order and need to offer a partial refund.

[Francisco_MW]

I want to give everyone an update on this issue, two weeks later and still unresolved but I learned a few alarming facts that we all as shop owners should be aware of. 

Meta has continued to fail at communication. They have been unresponsive for the most part, the few times where they have been responsive it's to tell me incorrect information such as "It looks like we refunded the customer and everything worked out" which is clearly not what I am contacting them about. This is done via messenger (not email) and my response to them is always met with an auto response. Per Shopify there is NOTHING Shopify can do to fix this issue since the transaction was done via Facebook/Meta using PayPal. I was told I should continue working with Meta and PayPal to try and get this resolved. Since Meta has been unresponsive I reached out to PayPal. I've dealt with them in the past via transactions on eBay and in my experience PayPal has offered buyer/seller protection.

I reached out to PayPal and they responded within the hour. They apologized for the situation, however per PayPal there was nothing they could do about it since META was the one that initiated the refund. I asked them what my steps should be if Meta does not respond or continues to ignore what I am saying. I asked them what I could do in regards to a claim and how many days I would have to wait since I know there is a process like this on eBay. This was their response: "There is no recourse on our end when a refund was not originally initiated on our end. We do not have a claim process for this type of issue. We can only advise for you to try reaching out again to Meta. If you have no further questions feel free to end the conversation, and thanks for contacting PayPal support."

I went back to Shopify to let them know a) PayPal is not who I should be contacting since there is nothing they could do and b) what should I do if Meta continues to ignore me? This is the response I received to that. "I do really understand your frustrations on this and I wish I had an easy workaround for these Meta orders but when its processed on Paypal through Meta, Shopify has zero input in these orders. If Meta don't reply then I cant see another solution for this order."

So I have learned that when dealing with Meta/Facebook:

1. PayPal can not offer you any kind of support/protection against transactions incorrectly processed by Meta. Can do nothing if Meta decides to ignore me.
2. Shopify can not offer you any kind of support/protection against transactions incorrectly processed by Meta. Can do nothing if Meta decides to ignore me.
3. Meta has too much control over this situation since the owner of the shop, the platform hosting my shop, and the payment portal that processed the transaction all have no control over the situation.

I am not sure who else Shopify has this kind of set up with but this is a HUGE red flag. I will no longer be linking my store to a Facebook shop due to this experience but more importantly I am now questioning whether or not I should remain using Shopify since they also have not been able to do anything. Honestly, It doesn't even matter at this point if I get the refund or not because there is a bigger concern.