E-Bay RETURNS, WHAT A BUCKET OF WORMS

Let me say this, I have been on e-bay for twenty years , I have 3000 100% feed-backs , I pend over 50,000.00 a year on e-bay so I know something about this.....The biggest trouble with e-bay is its not consistent with its rules, one day its one thing and the next day its something else.......Its nice to have good rules that are not forever changing.........Some people don't buy enough stuff to run into problems.......So there view point isn't as relevant as high volume buyers, most of the buyers and sellers on e-bay have no idea what they are doing......

I also no longer sell on eBay due to the way eBay treats it's sellers. My buyer was ticked the marantz he bought didn't come with a remote, despite the add specifically listing what came with the sale. So my buyer demanded to return and when I refused he broke the unit denting in the top and claimed it didn't work, even after admitting to me that it worked, and I got screwed. EBay's buyer protection pays the seller back out of eBay's pocket and then they take the money right out of the PayPal account of the seller. And if it's no longer in the account, they send you to there collections dept. I always thought eBay tried to resolve cases with fairness, but it's clear that it's a buyers world on eBay. You can also see this in the quality items listed on eBay, it's not like it used to be, it's mostly crap. Nor like it was years ago, smart sellers no longer sell there.

Autospec, sorry about your situation, but it could be possible that the seller himself didn't know how the inside of this unit looked, only that it powered up and seemed to perform properly.
As a buyer I know just how much both ebay and paypal side with protecting the buyer. About a year ago I bought a set of speakers from a seller in CA; I closed the sale on paypal and chose to drive out, several hundred miles, to pick up the speakers. on my way out I received a call from the seller asking if I could bring cash as he was informed by paypal that funds would be held up to 20 days. I explained that I couldn't do that as the money had already been pulled from my account but that I would contact paypal as the buyer as soon as we met and I picked up the speakers and was satisfied they were as described. The speakers looked very good and the seller seemed like s good and sincere person so I called paypal service and spoke to a rep who explained that payment could be expedited as soon as I returned, was satisfied with the sale and confirmed receipt and satisfaction with ebay. That satisfied the seller so I returned home with the speakers, set them up and they performed very well as promised. I promptly posted a confirmation with ebay and left positive feed back thinking the sellers funds would promptly be available - Wrong! I got a call from seller 3 days later telling me that funds were still being held. After me calling paypal, confirming
my account and letting them know I was completely satisfied with the purchase and had confirmed receipt and left positive feedback with ebay, it still took another 10 days and two more calls to paypal for a very good seller to get his funds, even though they had been held from my account instantly on first day of sale. 
Jim