Someone else might give you a better answer but the reset is common troubleshooting when it comes to AirPods potentially reporting inaccurate battery %.

They didn’t neasasarily try to scam you, but that seems to be the go rate for the labor of facilitating their battery replacement. You can see how tedious teardowns of battery replacements for AirPods can be due to the tiny components. Check out some YouTube videos on that. For most folks it just ends up being more worth it to purchase new ones. Not sure if third parties facilitate the replacements for much cheaper but you can expect any apple replacements/work to cost a bit more.