l am also an ebay seller (trying to be a former ebay seller), and I agree with judi that ebay policies over the last 1–2 years have created an uneven paying field with buyers favored over sellers. Just visit the sellers board on the forums and you’ll hear some appalling stories. It almost seems like ebay is trying to breed distrust between the 2 groups, especially smaller sellers. Paypal and ebay have gone to a pretty much automatic refund policy for buyers who file a dispute. There will always be bad apples on both sides, and honest small sellers are at risk these days. I’ve seen colleagues in the vintage clothing area who have lost “item not received” disputes where the buyer had already left glowing feedback about how happy they were with the item. Other cases where the buyer wore the dress to an event, then filed “not as described” to return for refund, despite clear photos from the sellers that disproved the damage claim.
You’ll probably get your money back, which sounds like the right decision in this case. Ebay/paypal will require you to pay for return shipping – make sure you use delivery confirmation to prove you sent it.
There’s a helpful webiste, www.toolhaus.org – I recommend using it to research a seller before you decide to purchase. It pulls up all the negatives and neutrals for a userid, both received and given. Many the time I decided not to bid on something I wanted based on based on the information there, and sometimes more telling, how the seller responded.