Do I still have grounds to prosecute? OMG!
First a little background on myself, so you know where I am coming from. I graduated from Harvard Law 8 years ago, and I have had my own practice here in Wisconsin for the past 6 years. I do both civil and criminal law.
Okay...let's get to this issue. What do you presume are the grounds you have for a case? I see nothing personally. So you purchased an item on Ebay, never received it, but your money was refunded in full to you. At this point, the seller has no obligation to sell this item to you. You have paid for nothing! PERIOD! If you take a close look at Ebay's policies you will see that all of the forms that are there for you to fill out in cases of fraud are for items that you 1) paid for and never received, or 2) paid for, received the item, but the item was misrepresented.
Here is the policy...just FYI.
Under the Seller Non-performance policy, the following practices are not permitted:
1. Not delivering an item for which payment was accepted
2. Significantly misrepresenting an item by not meeting the terms and item descriptions that are outlined in the listing
Even if the seller is doing something "under the table" as you say, which astounds me how many people automatically think this is a shady deal, you have NO CONTROL OVER THAT! Like I said, the seller has refunded the money to you, and any obligation to you ended at that point by you accepting the refund. And just a personal note on my part....how do you know that this wasn't an honest mistake anyway? Maybe it got poked/scratched while moving, or maybe a child damaged it while daddy wasn't looking. Who knows? Last time I looked I lived in the United States were individuals were innocent until proven guilty. It seems the judges in this room have just labeled this guy guilty, but whatever. Again...just my $.02.
So unfortunately you have no case for the courts. You can leave negative feedback to the seller, but what's the point? Sure, the seller will have that scar on his Ebay feedback, but do you really think that is going to hinder his buying/selling on Ebay? Probably not. Plus, the seller will probably just send you negative feedback back, and then YOU have negative feedback on your rating. The choice, however, is yours. There's really no right answer to that one.
Like I said in an earlier post, I would probably just chalk this one up to an Ebay learning experience, and let it go. Pressuring this guy is going to do no good because if this guy is at all smart, he knows that he has no obligation to you and the threatening emails will be pointless.
Hope this helps, and if you would like....email me and I can answer any legal questions you have. And I won't even charge you! lol Don't hear that very often from a lawyer!!!
Take care!