jquery and ajax response text not working

[unwashed potato!]

not sure what i'm doing wrong.

this is my jquery

			$.ajax({
				type: "POST",
				url: '/p/process_cForm.php',
				data: "cName="+cName+"&cPhone="+cPhone+"+&cEmail="+cEmail+"+&cMessage="+cMessage+"&cCopy="+cCopy,
	
				error: function(data) {
				alert('error1: '+data);
				},
				success: function(data) {
				alert(data);
				if(data == "123") {
				$("#cForm").fadeOut('fast');
				$("#cFormResult").fadeOut('fast');
				$("#cFormSent").html("Thank you for getting in touch with Green Clean. We will be replying soon.");
				$("#cFormSent").fadeIn('fast');
	
		
				}
				else {
				$('#cFormResult').html(data).fadeIn('fast');
				alert('Load was performed.'+data);
				}
				}
 
			});

and this is a rough idea of my php file of the part i'd figured would be needed

$returnVal = 123;
return($returnVal);

the alert to show the data after success is always blank and it's driving me crazy

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Will need to see more than that for the PHP... Are you echoing anything?

 

[unwashed potato!]

ah so it needs to be echoed and not retuned. seems to have fixed it for the moment. i've been held back by this for days thank you a million for helping me get past this issue.