Hi, @fury_sauce. A 97.5% feedback rating actually isn't regarded as all that great on eBay, and looking at the details of your seller's feedback, they've received 58 negative and neutral feedback reviews in the past twelve months, or almost five per month. Problems such as yours seem to be typical for this seller, and as they've received quite a few negatives for refurbished Alienware hardware, it suggests to me that the refurbisher is doing a pretty lackluster job and the seller doesn't really care or is hoping that most buyers don't care. While it's possible that there was a switcheroo at the eBay International Shipping (eIS) hub when it was received in Illinois, I think it's pretty unlikely given the differences you're describing.
One aspect about the eBay International Shipping process that makes it so appealing to sellers is that eIS handles returns since most garden-variety eBay sellers aren't able to generate return labels for items shipped outside of their own country. I have a feeling that the address that was on the return label was not connected to the seller at all and that the item went back to an eIS operation that handles returned merchandise. It was probably somebody in that operation that inspected the returned laptop rather than the seller, who probably won't see it back and eIS will either liquidate or dispose of it themselves.
I'm not sure what you mean about your question about whether you "did the right thing." I'm going to assume you're asking if you went about this the right way by claiming the laptop was the wrong item rather than not as described. As far as eBay handling the case on your end, it doesn't really matter as you'd have received a full refund either way. It may make a difference to the seller's file as to whether or not they receive a black mark or "defect" for the sale from eBay, but I'm not sure about that. I'm hoping someone better versed in returns--particularly ones involving eIS--can weigh in here.
One thing you should keep in mind when making significant purchases such as this on eBay is the nature of any warranty promised by the seller. I see that your laptop had an "all state" warranty, which I assume refers to the fifty US states. The warranty wouldn't have been valid here in Canada. Even if it were, the sticky thing about warranties on eBay is that it's impossible to force recalcitrant sellers to honour them in the event of a problem, which is all the more reason to not just check a seller's feedback number, but their complete feedback record and read the negative feedback reviews.
Hope this all makes some sense. It's getting late for my little grey cells.
