TO the OP,
Let it go. Better to refund and bann than fight it out and worry you'll lose anyway.
To packs,
I understand that some measure of protection for buyers and sellers alike is needed. The problem I have is that the protection has skewed waaaaaay waaaaay waaaaay over to the buyers. It is no longer a fair marketplace. I don't totally agree that eBay is a buyer driven marketplace as you describe it. The reason ebay worked at the beginning so well it that is relied on buyers who want to buy, but also sellers to want to sell. At the beginning it was a way for PEOPLE to sell to other PEOPLE. Now it has been changed to be like Amazon, where BUSINESSES sell to PEOPLE.
In the world of Walmart/target/etc, the idea of the buyer is always right works for them, because they can factor in losses as part of their selling strategy. The number of returns pales in comparison to the number of successful sales. On ebay, this model doesn't fit exactly the same. Small sellers don't have the deep reserve that the big businesses do to allow for any offset. What this has done is steer many small honest sellers/collectors away from using ebay. These sellers, now consign to either third party ebay sellers, who often get higher prices for things and/or use the big auction houses which usually get higher prices along with charging a buyer's premium.
The 2 net effects of all of this are 1) buyers pay more for the same items and sellers get less for the same items and 2) less good items are available for sale on eBay. There used to be so much more good stuff on ebay to buy, as small sellers or collectors who were selling are now avoiding selling there.
The only winners are ebay and the third parties who act as brokers. The only other option sellers really have is to put it on as a ridiculously high BIN(as they know they will HAVE to negotiate) with a best offer and then have to go through the hassle of negotiating back and forth. Of course, when people do that, then people will complain about all the sellers who have museums of items posted with very few sales.
Lastly, it is incredibly hypocritical for eBay to get all high and mighty about protecting buyers by using the protection policy, when they do virtually NOTHING about shilling, bad buyers, and especially all the forgeries with well known bad certs. They won't do anything about that because it makes them money. They could be protecting so many more people by getting rid of bad autos than they do by their uber liberal refund policies.
Mark V
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