Hey blueriverrain,
From the date you started this thread, I know I'm a bit late to the party. But I wanted to belatedly offer you some support in this sea of negativity.
I think you made an honest mistake. I was not shocked to the core by this because, gasp, on occasion I make honest mistakes too ... of course, unlike the other posters here who are infallible.
When I list I practically go over my items with a magnifying glass. However, twice this year I had to cancel orders when the handbags I checked thoroughly on listing had issues with zippers when I checked them again before sending. Hey, stuff happens.
The hallmark of a good seller is in how they resolve problems. You issued an immediate refund which, IMO, is all you could be expected to do. I would never have left you negative feedback. Frankly, I'm not crying a river for a buyer who effectively scored a free top which can simply be tossed in the washing machine.
I see from your profile you have over 14,000 sales, yet everyone here is focused on the couple of items which, according to buyers, were not as described. Good grief, if that was a reason to condemn a seller, we'd be back rubbing sticks to start fires. Let's see. In the past year, Bunnings delivered half of my order of shelves and brackets. JB Hi Fi sent the wrong season of a TV series. One of the flatpack bookcases I ordered had holes drilled too shallow so a huge chunk of MDF broke off when I was assembling it. Need I go on?
The point is [almost] everyone makes mistakes. If a seller rectifies the mistake, we're good. I think negative feedback is useful when a seller is willfully deceptive or shows a pattern of carelessness. Perversely, some of the worst sellers are the least concerned about negative feedback except in the unlikely event ebay intervenes. For example, there are still many sellers doing a roaring trade in pirated Taylor Swift CDs with complete immunity. Speaking of which, as Taylor would say, "the haters gonna hate [so] shake it off".
