returns / unwarranted feedback

[ibcinyou!2429]

Customer purchase an item, then left neutral feedback. Then started a return saying item was faulty/defective. Received item back, Thoroughly checked because what customer gave for a reason was virtually  impossible.  Thoroughly checked absolutely nothing wrong, customer took some parts off and didn't send back. Meanwhile ebay saying I have 3 days to issue refund and they charged me return shipping. This whole thing makes absolutely NO SENSE. Any advise would be greatly appreciated? It seems ebay always caters to the buyers and sellers get the short end!  

[mega-ma-roo]

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@ibcinyou!2429 wrote:

Any advise would be greatly appreciated? 

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In situations like this, there is no way for eBay to know who is telling the truth. In those situations, the eBay Money Back Guarantee always protects the buyer. My advice: Issue the full refund because if you do not the buyer will ask eBay to step in and eBay will refund them from your account and give you a defect for making them step in. 

After the refund, you can appeal to eBay, but that requires proving to them that you are the one telling the truth. That is difficult to do. You could file a police report and report to USPS for mail fraud and use those reports in the appeal. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Basically this is just another cost of doing business online and things like this will happen from time to time.