I don't believe thieves deserve any consideration whatsoever. Criminal Prosecution? Yes. Patience? Definitely not. IMHO you should establish a 24-48 hour refund deadline with seller. If your money doesn't show up within the alloted time-frame, file PayPal dispute and immediately escalate it to Claim. Please let us know the outcome. Good Luck!
I agree.
This is serious. The seller sent you a counterfeit handbag. You say you have only purchased three items on ebay. This seller obviously is taking advantage of that, assuming that you don't know or understand all of the ebay / paypal policies yet.
You say you don't want to tarnish the seller's reputation.
Why? What this seller did is ILLEGAL.
Again, I see a couple posters disagreed w/ my post asking about the seller.
I really believe that it is important knowing who you are dealing with!
If this is a seller that has been selling for years with hundreds of feedback, more than likely the seller will want to take care of the problem quickly as the dreaded "fake handbag" negative will affect his/her future sales. Yes you already left a positive feedback, but you can leave a comment "found out later bag was fake avoid this seller!" . Getting your refund this way will be much quicker than going through ebay/paypal.
After you get your money back, you can still leave the comment and report to the authorities.
If the seller is newly registered, perhaps is scamming others and then will move on.....and perhaps disappear..... then you will def. need to file a claim asap, and report to the authorities immediately.
Frankly, I'd email the seller right away and supply the tracking information, and give him/her 24-48 hours to refund your money INCLUDING the shipping.