I went through a very similar situation with an improperly packaged vintage guitar. It arrived with a crack down the back of the neck-- seller insisted that she'd used enough packing material (two crumpled styrofoam take-out boxes) and refused to give me a refund. She hadn't insured it, though I'd paid for insurance.

I filed a claim with paypal stating the item arrived "not as promised." They read my claim and found in my favor-- as soon as I supplied a tracking number proving that I'd shipped the item back to the seller, they refunded 100% of the item's price.

The seller freaked out on me and left negative feedback, but I got to avoid losing a few hundred bucks on a piece of driftwood. I suggest you do the same if you can't work things out with the seller.


also: the seller in my case wanted UPS to pick up the package for inspection, but I knew if I gave the package up, it'd take several weeks for them to decide, most likely, that it was improperly packaged. In that time I would have lost my right to dispute the transaction w/ PayPal, so I refused to give UPS the guitar and let PP sort it out. Sometimes you just gotta play rough.