I sold a pretty valuable LEGO set (at least by my standards), and it was delivered yesterday. I woke up to a message from the buyer saying that the box had arrived in a plastic bag when USPS delivered it because of a strong feces odor and that they tried to air it out overnight but the smell lingered and so they threw out the package (including the deconstructed LEGO set and its instructions). They said USPS wouldn't accept it to ship it back because the smell was so bad.
I have no idea what to do in this situation. I packaged and shipped it myself, and the box itself nor any of its contents had any kind of smell much less one so offensive that it would render the LEGOs unsalvageable. I have no reason to believe this person would be lying, and I feel terrible they had to deal with that, but I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. I'm fairly new to eBay, but I've been selling old clothes on Depop for a few months and nothing like this has ever happened.
Obviously, I'll be giving the buyer a full refund, but I'm not sure what to do about the lost value of the set. I was going to pay for a return shipping label, but the package and its contents were thrown out. I was looking to raise a dispute with USPS, but I don't know if that's an option because it was thrown out and there is no indication on the Tracking website of this problem having been documented in transit or upon delivery.
Thank you so much; I really just want to get this worked out for everyone.
UPDATE: I spoke with USPS just now, and the kind employee said that the bag in the picture they sent me is not the bag they use, if the item had been damaged in-transit the tracking website would reflect that, and that this would be the only time in his 30+ years with the Postal Service that he'd seen this. I will be telling the buyer to return the item if they want a refund. Thank you all so much for your input.
