Yep of course hindsight is wonderful and experience often hard won. As well as absence of photos of any glass I guess the original listing noting "regular cleaning" might have raised a flag. That 30x eyepiece is actually very nice if in good condition.
For a loong time now Ebay sellers have complained that it is weighted heavily in favour of the buyer even to the extent now that I suspect fraudulent buyers have become quite an issue. I'm guessing you shouldn't have trouble getting Ebay on to your case but as PYRTLE suggests, any delay reduces your credibility.
I have already openned a dispute on paypal it has been 3 days with no reply from the seller, the first step is always contact them.
An error, it's not ideal, you better open the case from Ebay, not from paypal, these procedures are exclusive.
I'm a seller myself and i know what is like to deal with twitchy and unfair buyers... So i like to think i'm a reasonable buyer too.
I'm willing to accept the issues with the scratched optics when buying old items, here i add a photo of the HARDLY used eyepiece (please zoom in the image, no, that's not dust), when he assured on the description the scope had been "
used in a handfull of ocations and been well looked at" Again likely lying, but, it's ok.
The eyepiece (i think that's the cause) renders a slight haze effect, but, that's not the end of the world i was planning to replace the EP eventually, but the dented hood??? (and probably the sloppy repair)...
I try with all my strength not to feel cheated by the description and the photos, but he is not making it easy for me.
If i ever had to sell an item like this i would expressly show (and not deliberately hide) the tare of product (so does most of sellers), not just for honesty, but for avoiding later problems...
By the way, to contribute something to this telescope forum, i also want to clarify that what is said about the fluorite Kowa TSN's is true, they have a remarkable optical quality, even if i had to discover it in such a traumatic way.
I love to read how much some users like jring defend this kind of old scopes, they are right, very good performance, and better with an eyepice upgrade.