Need some advice: Ebay buyer claims his account was hacked

[Paladin69]

Looks like I am dealing with one of those scammers that mine with stuff and then try to return it.  He claims his ebay account was hacked.  If this was true then why did he pay?  He never said his paypal account was hacked as well.

The whole thing smells like a scam.  He has the product in his hands and he waited 7 days to tell me all of this.  He has an incredibly high 5-digit rating.  I'm going to assume ebay will arbitrate in his favor which is a bunch of BS.  They should have time-stamps on IP addresses when a purchase was made to see if it has been used before by his account.

He has offered to return the product and pay for ebay fees?  This seems like a violation of the rules to work outside of ebay.

Has anyone else had to deal with his?

[pat1900]

In this case he obviously hacked the account of a trustworthy ebay user.
Anyway, was all the payment done via Paypal?
If so, do some googling for user reports on "Paypal Seller's Protection" or "ebay Seller's Protection".

Don't try to start discussions with ebay about IPs and timestamp a.s.o., they simply don't bother. Just point to the Seller Protection paragraph, and send them a scan of any paper receipt/proof of mailing.

[smracer]

I have seen this scam before.  You will most likely get a brick back in the mail.  You need to videotape yourself receiving the box from USPS, Fedex, etc and open the box right in front of the driver and do not take the camera off the box!  Make sure to video the label on the box and unbox it all in one shot!  Do not cut the camera or pan away!

I hope this wasn't over $5,000 as seller protection only covers up to $5,000 a year.