how to get a refund without having received the item

[selvanegra13]

Hi all, I have been scammed by an ebay user, who put the pre-shipping label, but never sent the item. I made the mistake of giving the option to return the item, waiting for it to arrive but it never arrived.

Now, I don't know how to proceed with the refund, as ebay only shows this:

Sorry, our system is temporarily unavailable, please try again later or you can try to resolve the issue by contacting the seller.

And it shows two tracking numbers, the one he never sent and mine which was obviously generated automatically.

Can anyone help me? The user shows at this moment 14 negative comments and bad feedback in the last 6 months, unfortunately I paid a thief.

[globexk]

Did you pay with Paypal? If you did you have 6 months to file not received claim.

[soh.maryl]

eBay's Money Back Guarantee for buyers offers help if/when a transaction goes wrong.

Does either of the two tracking numbers indicate that the item WAS delivered? 

If you don't receive your item within 5-7 days of its last estimated delivery date, you, the buyer, have 30 days to open an item not received case in the Resolution Center.

It sounds like, for some unknown reason, you opened an item not as described case.

If that's what happened, that's the reason eBay is  not getting you a refund.

If you  paid with Paypal, you have 180 days to open an ITEM NOT RECEIVED CASE there.

Please read the MBG before you continue your eBay shopping career.