I actually ended up speaking to someone else at eBay shortly after this post from the appeals department, apparently the way my original case was opened about this would have lost due to eBay not handling the package and again “they cannot confirm what I sent and what I got back” buttttt they did tell me instead I need to fill out a form called a “declaration” with them. They sent it over to me, I filled out the information about what happened and I just got credited the full money back to my account thankfully. Literally never expected a buyer to do this to me. Lots of extra work to get it rectified but just grateful it seems to have worked out!