Customer Service recommended seller escalate a SNAD? Almost Never.

It's been reported too many times to doubt.

Naive seller encounters the SNAD dance.  Seller knows the thing was as described, and makes the case to CS.  CS says escalate, you will win.

Seller Escalates, loses within 1/2 hour, and calls back CS.  No help now from CS.

Bottom line

Seller must never escalate a SNAD case.  Almost.

If the ducks are lined, up, escalating an INR is fine, but never a SNAD.

The plan, unless seller wants to refund either in full or in part:

Reply "return for refund".
Wait for the return.
Refund when returned.

After 30 days of no refund, the case will time out.

The rare exceptions when seller might win are purely based on technicalities, not the merits of the case.

There is a zone to understand, which is when buyer submits the SNAD but doesn't actually claim anything was not as described.  Says something like "I didn't approve this item".  Or says "received a pair of roller skates", while the title and picture showed a pair of roller skates. Seller can win such a case, but be very careful.  This is what is known as a "poorly formed SNAD dispute".

Paypal glitch regarding transaction being seller protection eligible

An apparently widespread glitch exists with transactions being reported as not eligible for Seller Protection.

Numerous sellers have reported that they called Paypal, and were told that the report was a glitch, that the transaction was covered after all.

At least one report exists of a seller who called Paypal, was told that the report was a glitch. When the transaction was stopped the next day, Paypal denied seller protection because the transaction had been reported ineligible. In other words, the verbal words of the Paypal rep on the line were subsequently dishonored when the protection turned out to be needed.

Some sellers have been requesting that Paypal attach some notation to the transaction to show that it was indeed covered.   No reports of such a notation being dishonored have appeared.

Here's an example posted of the problem:

OK to ship

Payment Status: Completed

We recommend that you:

Ship to the buyer's address on this page
Use a shipping service with signature confirmation
Save all tracking information or other proof of shipment

>>>Seller Protection
>>>Not Eligible

>>>Not eligible for protection

Ship to address

XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX
Midlothian, VA 23112
United States
Confirmed 

Confusion over adding a handling charge

From time to time, I encounter the claim "I can't add a handling charge, Ebay must have eliminated handling charges!!".

And the answer is, you can add a handling charge.  However:

1. The listing must use calculated shipping
2. The handling charge option must be selected.

On your listing, first off, check to see if the option is available.  It's just below the handling time option.

If it's not there, confirm this is a calculated shipping listing.
If it's just not there, check the line which begins "Add Shipping Details".  There is a link on that line to "add or remove options".  Go there, and add the handling charge option.

If the handling charge option is not in the list of options which can be added using that link, then one of two things is true.
1. The listing is not calculated shipping.
2. The handling charge option is already available.

Just complicated enough to be confusing.

Note: you can use a handling charge on calculated shipping even while using a flat rate shipping service, such as Media Mail.

But be careful how high your handling charge is. Bum S/H stars are painful.