@not.the.kingswood,
It has been quite a while since eBay owned PayPal (2015, to be exact).
Even when eBay owned PayPal, buyers could not open both an eBay case and a PayPal case for a refund. It was and is explictly outlined in its policies, that this was not permitted.
In the current policy for eBay's Money Back Guarantee, it is stated several times. It's even described unambiguously as abusive buyer behaviour. I'll rubricate the instances in the quoted material below:
Loss of coverage
Even if a transaction is eligible for eBay Money Back Guarantee, buyers can lose protection if they voluntarily close a request or case, open duplicate claims using other resolution methods, or engage in fraudulent or abusive buying behaviour.
Duplicate claims
A buyer may not seek resolution for the same transaction under more than one buyer protection program. eBay may close a buyer's eBay Money Back Guarantee case if the buyer files a chargeback or buyer protection claim for the same transaction with their payment provider (such as a credit card issuer or payment service provider), regardless of whether the chargeback or buyer protection claim is for the full or partial amount of the transaction.
If a seller loses a chargeback, they may be eligible for payment dispute seller protections.
Fraudulent or abusive buyer behaviour
Buyers will not be covered by eBay Money Back Guarantee if they make fraudulent claims or engage in activity as described in the Abusive buyer policy. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Colluding with a seller to wrongly declare an item's value for customs
- Colluding with a seller to wrongly declare an item's value for customs
- Filing a chargeback after receiving a refund
- Claiming an item was not received when there is proof of delivery to the address provided on the Order details page
- Falsely claiming an item was not as described
- Opening duplicate cases using other buyer protection programs
- Returning an item other than the original item received
- Using or damaging an item and then returning it.
In addition to the consequences described in the User Agreement, we reserve the right to indefinitely suspend an individual's coverage under eBay Money Back Guarantee and impose any other sanctions we may deem necessary including issuing warnings, blocking a buyer's ability to request returns or refunds on eBay and account suspension.
In other words, you must never open another case through some other means for the same transaction. By opening a PayPal casewhen you'd already opened an eBay case/refund request, your easiest resolution method is now closed. Permanently. eBay are highly unlikely to reopen it; they are more likely to put you on their radar so that if something like this occurs again (or anything which eBay deem to be abusive buyer behaviour), your ability to open a Money Back Guarantee case in the future may be limited.
What you should have done, of course, is open an eBay request for refund on the basis of INR (Item Not Received) once the EDD (latest Estimated Deliveery Date) had passed, and let that play out. If the seller hadn't voluntarily refunded you after 3 days (that is, 3 days after your opening the request), you could have asked ebay to step in, which would have meant a refund for you and a spanking for the seller.
But the PayPal request should be successful. Just let it take its time. Make sure you check the status of the dispute/case within PayPal; make sure you don't let any deadlines float past; make sure you don't close it until everything is resolved.
