Hello and sorry this happened to you. There's a lot of discussion about this topic on the US Powerseller board, which you can check out. It's one of the top threads. The consensus there seems to be that for international purchases, you should require a trackable shipping method if the buyer wants to use PayPal, and signature confirmation for anything over $250.00. I have been really lucky with my international customers, who have been a pleasure, even the ones that didn't speak english and communicated through those awful online translators. I have never had that requirement, but will take the advice and start doing that for higher $ items.
Sometimes the local post office you're shipping to can be pretty helpful, putting you in touch with the carrier for that route. I did that once and the carrier had delivered it the prior day. I emailed the customer to let him know that I had spoken to his carrier, gave him the carrier's name and the problem disappeared. Sometimes you can win a PayPal appeal, I have, but it takes a lot of effort.
