My Faux Pax:
When I said I don't trust ebay, what I should have said was there are a lot of unscupulous individuals using ebay. Like you said, the fault was not with ebay, it was with the individual using it for devious purposes.
I stand corrected, but I reitterate, I won't use ebay just because of experiences such as yours.
I wish you luck with whatever compensation you might be lucky to receive.