I have made many ebay purchases (home theater stuff, automotive stuff, basic house stuff, a vacation, etc.). I have been screwed a couple of times because the product wasnt as described but I have gotten reimbursed 100% of the money 100% of the times. I only use paypal and I only buy items that have a paypal coverage guarentee specifically noted for the items. It usually takes about 4 weeks for paypal to reimburse the money after trying to mediate (using eBay and Paypal procedures) the issue and help the buyer and seller resolve the matter on there own. Normally the bad sellers are crooks and dont even attempt to resolve the issue and Paypal will see that as there way of ignoring them and the problem. You basically sit back and wait while Paypal trys to get the seller to respond to you. If he doesnt in a certain timeframe they reimburse you the money and I dont know how they deal with him from there out. I do know ever problem I had was for "not as described, false description resolution" issues. And as I just said they didnt respond to anybody so I got to keep the crap and got my money back. I guess the crook wasnt to concerned about his junk (I say junk but it was a used, supposed to be brand new factory sealed Dell computer w/ TV tuner card) he sent me. Apperantly he didnt want it back because I sure as hell wasnt going to pay out of my pocket to ship it back and I never heard back from him since. I works ok for a garage computer/TV though.
db