Oh, you never ever send stuff back to China. Once I heard another woman say, “I buy from X, you get great deals on about 75% of the things you buy. The rest goes to Goodwill.” You still get the bargains.
Truthfully, about 25% of the items I get from China aren’t worth anything, and thankfully, all have been refunded. I did feel bad for one vendor, the item didn’t arrive for weeks and in the end, I filed a claim after no response from the seller. The day after I was refunded, it arrived, and of course, no response from the seller when I tried to contact them to repay for the item.
Considering how eBay works, I don’t blame them in the slightest. If they never respond, I can’t grade them on communication, and so long as they keep at least two metrics above 4 stars, they will continue on eBay. (Metrics are shipping rates (free shipping automatically gets 5 stars), communication can only be graded if they respond, so there’s a second automatic 5 stars if they never respond... shipping time (automatic 5 stars if they have tracking information in 24 hours), and item as described (the only metric which can’t be flubbed.))
I actually have been partially refunded a couple times, by Chinese sellers, when an item was not really as described... A key is to be polite.
(I’m not helping with the OT, am I?) :-)