Maybe the package was inspected and it got messed up in the inspections room?
I would just refund and be done with it. Put the buyer on your blocked list. Once in a while, you run into someone who knows how to manipulate the system. I would then report the buyer and explain the situation to them and if they have a similar incident...they'll take care of it. Unfortunately it seems ebay learns about bad buyers at sellers expense.
This is scary to see because it could indeed happen on a much more expensive item. And you can't even leave them a negative comment. It's kinda blackmail and I would like to know the buyer so I can block them too. Maybe there should be a website where ebay sellers can post names that other sellers can block because ebay won't tell you how it was resolved so we need to figure something out to stop this. It seems to happen more often than I remember. A creative buyer is a creative buyer. I can just imagine though how many bad buyers URL's would be posted. It would glitch out ebay's system if every seller had such a blocked buyer list.
It's these types of transactions, (I've had a few myself) that make me say in survey's I would never recommend this site to others. UNLESS you are a risk taker. There is a lot of risk involved. Most folks are genuinely good but when you have these experiences you wonder what is going on.
I sent a poster to ENGLAND. I did not normally do international, but this buyer pleaded/begged me to ship to them. IT was $200. I paid $10 for it at a thrift store so said ok, they made me feel sorry telling me they had the item when they were a kid and that their poster was burned in a fire. So... I sold it to them. It was $180 to ship because it had to ship flat because it was mounted to a thick board(from the factory). So it was $380. (It's a rare poster and on ebay sell for $300-500) so I ship. A few weeks later, I get a message saying the item was damaged. They sent pics. It wasn't damaged in the pics, but upon MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION, there was a little bit of FOXING on the paper. I think it was the glue under the poster that bound it to the board. (this could actually be seen in the pics I posted.) It is 60 years old! I said, that's patina NOT DAMAGED! They said "It's damage". Ebay says send a return label for $180. I'm like huh? I'm not going to pay $180 to return a false claim of damage. I fought it. I lost. I talked to another ebay agent who said, PATINA IS NORMAL WEAR & TEAR! YOU SHOULD WIN in an appeal!!!! So I filed an appeal and I lost immediately. WHY? The reasoning was I did not give a return label on damaged goods. So refunded the $200 PLUS $180 (original shipping) AND didn't get the poster back. I didn't get the fees back/ebay/paypal because I didn't take the return. So after it was over, I paid back the $200 plus original shipping $180 plus all the fees and my original $10. They said I should have returned it so I could report the buyer. HUH? If I wanted it back the first time round upon complaint, I'd have had to pay $180. and then $180+200 when It arrived. All for an item I stumbled on for $10.
Because they did pay $200 (which was returned), My loss was the $50 in original fees, (ebay/paypal) and $180 for the original shipping and I think $30 in packing. LARGE CARDBOARD and BUBBLE WRAP, TAPE etc so I was out about $260 plus the poster. They got it all for FREE. Under used items rules, PATINA is NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR. If they said "NOT AS DESCRIBED", I would have won and they would have kept the poster at the price they paid. BUT... because they claimed DAMAGED. And I didn't provide a return label. (because I thought it was RIDICULOUS) I lost it all. THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE GOING TO DO BEFORE THEY PURCHASED my VERY RARE/UNFOLDED NEW YORK CITY SKY VIEW ANATOMICAL POSTER FROM 1960. I actually didn't even have it on ebay. The person found an old listing and inquired, almost crying that I sell it to him. I couldn't believe they found a listing over a year old. It was hanging on my wall for over a year! My wife was disappointed I sold it! IT was so nice. The DAMAGE was the aged glue under the poster that bound it to the board. THIS WAS DONE AT THE FACTORY. THE POSTER WAS MINT. You needed a magnifying glass to see the "damage". With the naked eye, you couldn't see it. I showed SUPER CLOSE UPS in the description and you could actually see what looked like LIGHT FOXING. DAMAGED!!!!?????? I packed the heck out of it. It was HUGE, like 50x30! When they said damaged, I thought the mail put a hole through it or it was bent. Nope, it arrived as sent. FRAMED!
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For $12, pay and run fast and block. Sorry for the rant. Just trying to explain that anything is possible.
