You have a couple of options. First if it appears it may have been damaged in shipping and you had it well packed you can ask the buyer if they would be willing to take it to the local post office and file a claim if it was shipped through one of the USPS methods that has insurance included, aka priority mail. Either the sender or the receiver can file the claim with USPS but it is much easier for the receiver to do so since they have the item and the packing.
Continue with sending the buyer a replacement regardless. You can do this through eBay by simply purchasing another label for the replacement item or you can purchase the label outside of eBay and simply upload the tracking information into eBay after you have done so. If you do not want the damaged item back simply tell the buyer to keep it and avoid having to pay the return postage on the damaged one.
If USPS refunds the buyer for the damaged one they may be kind enough to send the refund to you. I worked through a case like this with a buyer once and USPS did in fact cover the damaged item, since the box appeared to have been ran over by a delivery truck. Buyer contacted me to let me know and asked how they could get the money back to me. I worked that transfer and had the buyer keep half of the USPS refund for their troubles.
klhmdg • Volunteer Community Mentor
