buyer did not receive item and wants a refund but it's too soon to file an insurance claim

[gembear2015]

There is a significant time gap between the time a buyer can claim "item not received" (and eBay forces a refund) and when sellers can file a lost item claim with eBay's insurance.  What if you refund the buyer and then the tracking shows the item is delivered after that....before the 30 days required for the insurance to pay.  Then the buyer has the item AND the money.  How is the seller protected, if at all?

[gembear2015]

Spoke to ebay and learned a couple of things.  One, yes the buyer can get ebay to process a refund before the insurance will pay for a lost item...but the decision CAN be appealed to ebay if subsequent tracking shows it was delivered.  She said don't just go ahead and refund it  yourself, wait for eBay to do it.  Otherwise the case closes and can't be reopened.  Also they will not process the refund the buyer requests IF there is an updated tracking from the post office (and I could not quite understand the rep's accent but I think she said within 5 or maybe it was 7 days from the refund request being filed...at any rate she said "this buys you time" before they automatically send the buyer a refund).  And of course if you have an honest buyer they will re-pay you on their own...but not all will do that.