I was hit by another newbie buyer - an account created solely to buy one of my BIN auctions and leave negative feedback. Probably someone who I've negged in the past, under a different account, or perhaps a seller competitor. He bought $2 worth of stuff, paid for it, and I left positive feedback. When he got it, he left 2 negative feedbacks saying "it took a month" and "item was damaged". I know that neither of those accusations is possible, because I shipped it within a couple days, and he lives within 2-3 days mailing distance from me (from Vancouver to Edmonton). He would have received it in under a week. Furthermore, the item (2 collectible cards) was shipped between two peices of cardboard, four layers of thin plastic, and five layers of normal paper. For it to be damaged it would have had to be put through a meat grinder. I've never had a card damaged in shipment, out of several thousand transactions.
So I have 2 negatives - great. I pull his contact info, and it seems to be false, so I report it. He gets NARUd. Few hours later, I get an email from PayPal.
"Claim Type:
The claim states the item received was significantly not-as-described.
The reason(s) are listed below:
The item was externally damaged"
It says my options are to refund his money (plus the $10 fee to PayPal for getting reported), or let him return the items for a full refund (plus the $10 fee to PayPal for getting reported), or refuse and give an explanation which allows PayPal to make the ruling.
I refuse to give this creep his money back and let him keep the items. I'm down to either getting him to ship them back, and refunding, or refusing altogether. I'm leaning toward refusing. If he had emailed me asking to send back the items for inspection, I would have accepted, and given a refund if they were indeed damaged in shipping (even though he didn't purchase insurance).
Has anyone else been through this kind of a chargeback? If I refund, is that admitting wrongdoing, and thereby getting a complaint added to my PayPal profile? What chances are that PayPal will rule in my favour, if I refuse the refund and explain my side? Does that fact that he has been NARUd for false contact information mean anything, or help me?