Claimed parts to be NOS but had signs of use. I contacted him and he apologized, saying he must not have looked closely enough and meant no deception. His first (and ultimately last for nearly three weeks) message sounded genuine enough, so I sent a response, telling him I would be sending back the parts and requesting a full refund - and would be opening a case just to cover my six.

Since it's been ages since I had to do something like this, I neglected to check the specifics of the shipping requirements for sending back - I figured a US Customs Declaration number on the package would suffice to track. Anyway, I asked if he'd received the parts after waiting a couple weeks (giving time for the package to get to CA from Diego Garcia, what with part of the shipping process being via military aircraft). Every subsequent message I sent received no response, and he never responded to the "Item Not As Described" case as was required, either. Two days ago I got a message from Ebay asking about the case status, informing me the case would be closed on September 28th if no word from me. Well, that got me going.

I escalated this evening, and within 5 minutes of that, I got notice from Ebay that my purchase price/shipping was refunded. Just a couple of minutes later I got this message from the seller:

"I have received the bolts- upon inspection, I can not see enough evidence to pin these as "used", although I could see what you would consider signs of use. At any rate, I have sent you your refund. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Thank You
Scotty"

I did not reply for obvious reasons.

DD

EDIT: Rootboy was the one who suggested this seller may have used aliases in the past, but he's not 100% positive about that. And, yes, Scott: the name associated with the return address was that of a woman.