That's not remotely similar. That's not fraud. It's a warranty issue. You either return it to the store or the manufacturer for repair or replacement. Some even will issue a call tag for UPS of FedEx to pick it up at your home at no expense to you, but in most cases you will have to bear the expense of returning the defective unit. That's normal commerce. And bear in mind that the buyer has the opportunity to thoroughly examine the item in the store. If he walks out with the wrong item, that's on him.
The eBay issue is with sellers who commit fraud. As an example, they advertise an item as NIB (New In Box). When the buyer receives it, it turns out to be used and abused or an entirely different object than described. That's not a warranty issue; it's deliberate fraud, a literal crime in some cases.
Federal law says that someone sent something that they did not order is under no obligation to pay anything for it, and can treat it as a gift. EBay blatantly disregards that and requires that the buyer return it at his expense in order to recover his payment.
EBay is complicit in false listings. I have seen numerous items listed as new, usually with eBay new category boilerplate attached, that are in fact not new, but obviously used and in many cases defective in some manner.
On several occasions, I have reported these listing violations via the appropriate eBay mechanism. I have yet to see a single one be taken down or modified in any way.
As I said, eBay makes big money off of these little scams. I'd like to see someone in authority take them to task on it, but I see little chance of that happening.
