Its a really bad place to sell things but its OK for buying stuff because of the way they side with buyers.

Probably true but I don't want to give them money. Amazon has the same stuff.

My father stopped using PayPal and eBay with his business. He sold a $14,000 item. The buyer said it was defective. PayPal took the money from his account and told the buyer to send the item back, which they didn't. So my Dad was out the money and the item. He tried to get his money back, but Paypal/ebay refused. He tells that story to everyone he possibly can to keep them from selling on ebay. I don't mind ebay. I just don't sell $14,000 items on it.

If I remember correctly, his suit is against PayPal. I can't remember all he said about the legal stuff, but I think the sale went through so there was no theft. The only "theft" was from Paypal withdrawing funds from his bank account. It's kind of scary what power your give Paypal when you give them your account information.

I haven't asked him about it in a long time. I'll have to see how it was resolved (if it is yet).

I have opened a case on ebay, as of this morning I feel quite insulted with the way the seller is handling this. Hopefully, something will come of it. Though chances are slim. :(

Actually, newegg does the exact same thing. I bought a motherboard from newegg and it had bent CPU socket pins out of the box. I had to spend a lot of time arguing with newegg to get a refund, it wasn't easy.

If the motherboard that the OP bought on ebay was brand new, the reason the seller didn't want to refund him is probably the same reason why newegg didn't want to refund me.. because the manufacturer usually doesn't want to give reimbursement for bent CPU socket pins, they'll usually claim it was damage done by the user.

You used Paypal for payment, right? I'd check to see if opening a dispute through Paypal is still an option. Paypal might not be perfect by a long shot (even by the standards of the finance industry). But they're heavily weighted in favour of the customer when it comes to disputes.

This is why I never purchase anything from Ebay. Unfortunately, I do have any other advice for you.

to be honest my opinion leans towards the fact it was refurbished and maybe the pins were damaged but hadn't "collapsed" until I put pressure on it with my cpu and again with the protective back when I returned the item. So when they opened it, it was buggered. I have had this happen before, a rarity but it has happened.

That's the other thing I stay away from. Usually the discount isn't enough for me to risk the previous buyers stupidity or the refurbishment company testing the part correctly. If it's not brand new from a seller I know, I don't purchase.

Its was my own stupidity I suppose. The model of CPU I have is quite hard to find compatible MOBO. So it was either fork out £400 new or £100 refurbished. Never again. Whether I get my money back or not, I'm upgrading my rig and starting from scratch.

Yeah, just use ebay's resolution process. I think you're already doing that, but just see it through. I haven't dug too deep into the user agreements, but I've found most people on ebay are pretty good to deal with and ebay has incentive to keep an eye on both bad sellers and bad buyers. ebay actually protected me from a scammer once - I bought something and next day had an email telling me the transaction was reversed on hold. They didn't outright say the person was a scammer, but they gave me enough hint to know I shouldn't risk it.

I've sold a lot of stuff on ebay and only had a few problems - no more than other stores - and mostly for used stuff in my case. Even if one every once in a while goes bad it's still better for me than buying new.