My Rant And Word Of Caution About Ebay Scammer

Inspired by the hilarious unfolding post about an ebay buyer who is scamming members here. I want to share my recent story.
I withdrew a bunch of cash from the bank and received 18 consecutive, pristine, crisp, star $100 notes. I know that such notes have a small premium and I decided to list them on ebay.
I was not disappointing. One person came along and made an offer on 10 notes. Someone else bought 2. Then came along some guy with 0 feedback and messaged me about buying 3. I was very wary of such a buyer, but I checked and the account was opened several months ago. I figured that was reassuring and we negotiated for a bit. After sending them an offer, and their response, I began to feel that something was off.
I have a rule that people who ask too many questions, are never good customers. Sorry to anyone out there who is guilty of said behavior, but that's my opinion.
I wanted to get out of it, but having already made the offer, I was risking a negative feedback by cancelling the order. I am terrified of a negative feedback. I reasoned myself that "I will be protected by ebay from any issues" and when the buyer eventually paid the $384 for the 3 $100 notes, I shipped them out.
Its hard to explain how I knew, but I knew this was going to go south.
The buyer received the item and immediately opened a return case writing


I knew it. I just knew it. Fighting the urge to defend my injured ego, I sent the following message


A return label was created on 9/3 and was not picked up by USPS until 9/10 (likely was not actually shipped until then, but with USPS in 2020 you never know). On 9/15 the package was "out for delivery" but then, was forwarded (I had a forwarding order for my mail which expired but was still causing some confusion.)
On that very day, the buyer opened a case with ebay stating that the return was delivered and that I did not refund the money. ebay immediately refunded the buyer from my Paypal account!
I called ebay. asked "what the heck man?" Why would you refund the buyer when the return was not delivered?
Hard to define their answer. Was basically "I can see that the item was not delivered and I don't know why we refunded the buyer. I will be sending this to X department and they will contact you." That did not happen for several days, so I called again. Pretty much the same garbage. The package was finally delivered on 9/21 and as soon as I picked it up, I knew!
I videoed the un-boxing. In the box there was a chewed up pen, a pencil, and a min key-chain flashlight.
I sat down and wrote and rewrote and re-rewrote until the following message was sent


I called ebay and fought HARD with them. They were terrible. I tried to reason with them that had they not refunded the buyer prior to delivery I wouldn't be in the position that I was in now. All they really left me with was, file a police report and they will look at the case.
I had already called the police in Texas (package was delivered there) and they said file where it was sent from. I called them and they said file with USPS postal inspector. I called a local postal inspector who said I could file a report online, but they don't provide a record of the report to send to ebay.
I am going, hopefully today to file a report in another local station that said they would take it.
My frustration with ebay is greater than my frustration with the thief. I have been a seller on ebay for many years and have completed over 2,200 transactions with no issues. I have been treated like garbage and this idiot has been given $300 of my money.
OK, that felt good to write.
Will share the name of buyer by PM to any sellers who want to block.