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Even that isn't right: if the original balance was $100k the loss can never be larger than that. You still have 25K in the bank so the loss is $75k, any other interpretation should not be labelled a loss, at best they are misguided expectations.

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The 150k is a "loss" in the same way that the movie industry "lost" $500 million (or whatever it is that they claimed) to piracy: revenue that they think they should have gotten, but didn't.

Precisely.

I agree it's up to interpretation, but in this scenario, the seller has shipped a set number of goods that the customers have paid for. The revenue has been generated but not moved successfully through a service provider to the final destination.

So it's not just an estimate. The money is not imaginary, it has already been collected from the customers.

It actually got refunded (see title, and update by OP).

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