I hear what you are saying. Without being able to see the actual feedback though, it is hard to judge exactly why it was removed. I guess if one of the ebay reps thought it was abusive, that might do it.
To me, it doesn't sound (based on your story) that it should have been removed but I think sometimes these reps make the wrong decisions. At least the seller's reply has also gone.
I think the seller was clearly in the wrong here and was lucky to have a neg removed.
First off, if the estimated delivery date was only 3 days, I would at the very least expect it to be lodged in that time. At the moment, I would not expect it to arrive in the time frame, but it is perfectly reasonable to expect a seller to post in their stated time frame. The handling time could not possibly have been 9 days or more if the ETA was 3 days.
So your seller was slack.
Secondly, he almost certainly lied to you about being overseas. As you point out, international travellers are now in quarantine for 14 days and not at their own home either. But whicj\hever way you swing it, the seller was in the wrong here. If he had been overseas, he had no right selling a product that was located in Australia and one that he personally planned on posting. There is no way he could possibly have hoped to honour the terms of the sale. And if he really was in Aust all the time, it was a stupid lie-better to have just apologised for the delay.
Lastly, if a seller intimates they have been in China, it is not racist to say they have been in China. Or anywhere else for that matter. The fact is, from the sounds of it, that it was meant to be a domestic sale and the seller, no matter what nationality he was or where he was located, should have been in a position to have the item posted in time-if not by himself then by someone else.
Probably a bad call by the ebay rep to have removed the neg but these things happen, luckily mosr sellers are better than that.
