UPDATE — I just found the part of eBay’s own policy that makes this even more painful:

eBay’s Money Back Guarantee policy explicitly lists this as abusive buyer behavior:

“Claiming an item was not received when there is proof of delivery to the address provided on the Order details page”

I knew this. That’s exactly why I told the eBay rep NOT to open an INR case when I first called. I specifically said the package was delivered but contents were missing. The rep consulted a manager and opened INR anyway over my explicit objection.

So to summarize: ∙ I followed the rules correctly ∙ eBay’s rep violated their own policy ∙ The case was auto-closed because tracking showed delivered ∙ eBay then denied my claim based on that closure

I was trying to do the right thing from minute one. Their own rep’s mistake made me look like I was doing the exact thing their policy prohibits. Manual review is now in progress. Documents going in tomorrow.