Maybe I'm being nieve, or overly optimistic, but I think that things have improved a bit over the last 6 months. Probably someone new in management has come along or something. The communication coming out of ebay has shown a significant improvement, check out the announcements. Nothing for exactly a year, and then at least one per month since: https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/eBay-Announcements/bg-p/eBayAnnouncements

Also, the fact that they have a new report tool shows that they are at least paying lip service to supporting the sellers better. Lip service is better than no service. Report tool: https://www.ebay.com.au/help/selling/resolving-buyer-issues/report-issue-buyer?id=4084&st=12&pos=3&q...

Anyway, as a result I have slightly changed my processes now. As an example, I had someone open a item not delivered case last weekend. I'm in Brisbane, buyer is in Perth. Item was low value so had no tracking. In the past I would have just refunded the item for fear of getting a defect. Now I send a message in the case with clearly defined terms and explanations:

• Reason why it might be late; "Shipping accross country can take longer than expected" etc
• let me know by specific date if it has still not arrived; in this case Friday
• Let them know that I am willing to refund on Friday if it still hasn't arrived

On Friday morning I sent another message in the case to the effect of "Just checking in, has your item arrived?"

In this example, the customer closed the case on Friday night, so I guess that they got their item. Best case scenario, yay!

mid case scenario, I have to process the refund on Friday because the customer is still saying the item didn't arrive.

Worst case scenario the customer escilates and I have to go to the trouble of pointing out to ebay (using the reporting tool) that I tried to be accommodating, but the buyer didn't even communicate and just escilated the case. I expect that I will still have to refund the item, but I shouldn't* have to wear a defect, and the customer has a note on their account that they could be less than honest. Maybe my effort will help another seller down the road.

*I know this is a bit of a big assumption, but I have a much more complicated example from the recent past where I did use the reporting tool after the customer escilated and I did not get a defect.