Some amongst you may remeber my recent thread crying about a newbie ebay buyer who opened a dispute due to breakage of items in transit. Instead of emailing me to tell me this, he just dove straight in with a paypal dispute. Needless to say, the items were insured up to the hilt (fragile items going abroad!) so a refund would have gone out as soon as proof of breakage came through.
Soooo, the buyer and I eventually thrash out a refund amount but now I can't refund him!! Because the buyer waited three weeks before opening the dispute, I'd withdrawn the cash from paypal. Paypal have withdrawn the full value of the disputed item (£350) leaving me with a negative balance (-£350). Apparently this is normal when a dispute is opened.
Whenever I try to refund the buyer, or send money I just get "Refund must not exceed the balance of your account". The only solution is to add funds from my bank account, but that can take up to seven working days and I really can't afford to be without £400 odd for, realistically three to four weeks (I'd have to withdraw it again afterwards).
The buyer is now threatening to escalate the dispute (whatever that means) if he doesn't get his refund by Monday. I've emailed him and offered to do a bank transfer but not sure if this would work as he's in Belgium. At my f3ckin wits' end here - the stupid ****t buyer and paypal are making my life a misery over a measly, sodding £56 refund which I would have paid out on the spot if only he'd emailed me in the first place. My website which is my livelihood is about to get pulled (it's on paypal subscription and of course, payment has failed) and I just want to go round to paypal's house and lean a burning wheely bin against its front door.... GRRR!!! 
Not even sure if I'm looking for advice here or just venting, but if you have any suggestions, please fire away....
I tried this once before and after many hours of PAYING THEM for the privilege of listening to crap music, I finally got to speak to someone whose English was almost literally non-existent and who was only capable of reading out the paypal "help" function's nonsense for twenty minutes. Might as well have asked the dog for help.
