"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!” ~~~~Rudyard Kipling.
Pretty sure Kipling was not talking about six damaged records on eBay.
Comparing policies (that are not concrete regulations based on case law) that can be interpreted in any number of ways with cardinal directions of geography is false equivalency. We also don't compare the laws of thermodynamics to the characteristics of Cub Scouts as outlined in Scout Law.
EBay's polices and actions are often not only ambiguous, but in some cases skirt the boundaries of what should be legal in countries eBay operates in. This is not an attack on eBay, but the result a 3 second search on Google.
Buyers have such wide leverage over sellers that sellers HAVE to find solutions to avoid being victims of exploitation and theft (or in this case, simply having defects against their seller's account due to an act of God). That isn't unethical.
People have the right to avoid being victims. If eBay doesn't like what a buyer or seller is doing, eBay will stop it. With the grift and mail-fraud taking place on eBay, semantic arguments like this are the least of their concerns.
