on the phone with paypal this morning, i inquired on the following scenario:

lets say you list an item on eBay and you have a return policy "refund for payment minus shipping costs", so if you receive an return, you can issue a partial refund.

apparently not,,, the paypal rep informed me that the buyer can still file a paypal claim for the FULL amount of the payment.. regardless of your ebay return policy. 

EVEN if it was shipped to a confirmed address..
EVEN if the item had tracking,,
EVEN if the tracking shows multiple delivery attempts, yet the package was returned a month later (the typical return time on an overseas shipment) as unclaimed.

i asked him why paypal even bothers offering a return policy (starting in january it will be a requirement for eBay stores). He said that if customers pay with paypal the the paypal policy supersedes the eBay one.

so i asked, "but eBay OWNS paypal, and starting next year they are banning all non-online forms of payment. So unless a seller has a merchant credit card account, they are basically making paypal mandatory. So why would they require sellers to create a return policy, when their own policy overrides it already?"

"i don't know..."  was his reply  (no shit...)