Ebay Seller Shenanigans

Did you know that an ebay seller can make negative feedback disappear simply by filing an unpaid item case against the bidder?

Allow me to preface my story by pointing out that I have been buying and selling on ebay since 1999, acquiring over 3900 Positive Feedbacks, with no Neutral/Negative feedbacks or any other adverse action against me.

Anyway, on September 15, I was the sole bidder on a 1926 Oregon Trail Commemorative Half Dollar, graded NGC MS-64. The auction was touted by the seller as a "no reserve" offering, thus I won the coin at the opening bid of $150, which I thought was a fair price for this particular coin.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131599078255

I learned that I won the coin the following morning, and was preparing to pay, when I noticed an email from the seller (thankfully the seller sent it through the ebay system). The seller's Sept. 16th email read (precisely): "very sorry, but coin is not for sale now the owner lost or misplaced,do not send money or I will return if you did,SORRY ,Bella."

This kind of annoyed me because I really wanted the coin, so I left the seller negative feedback, basically stating that I won an auction and the seller claimed to no longer have the coin.

Well, on September 19th, the seller opened an unpaid item complaint against me and the negative feedback disappeared from his rating (ironically, the same thing must have happened to a different bidder because the seller still has one negative feedback after "misplacing" another item).

So, of course, I called up an ebay representative and calmly explained that this seller clearly communicated to me that I should not pay for the item because it was lost. I explained that the seller's complaint was obviously in retaliation for the negative feedback I left and I would like ebay to close the groundless case against me. The ebay rep was able to pull up the seller's email to confirm my defense, but still said she was unable to close the case for 30 days. However, she also assured me that there would be no unpaid strike against my account, thanks to the seller's email instructing me not to pay.

Has a similar incident happened to anyone else in the Coin Community? It's hard to get upset over the situation, since I have the seller's email to dispute his claim of nonpayment, but I don't understand why ebay still must wait 30 days to close a complaint when the seller's malicious intent is so clear.