Can a eBay Case Be Opened Over 30 Days Past the Sale Date?

So I woke up today to a case opened by a buyer.  There are a TON of reasons this case should not have been opened, but the first one is that the sale date is JULY 22!

  suddenlysimplyThe other reasons…

  1. I listed it new with defects, stated the defects and took a photo of the defects… buyer is complaining about what I mentioned.
  2. The buyer altered the item by washing it.

I called eBay and they agree, that this case should not have opened, because it was 30 days past the sale date. They want me to wait for the buyer to respond or for 3 days to go by, and call again to have eBay close the case out because the buyer altered the item by washing it.   I pressed the eBay CS rep on how and why the case was opened in the first place since it was past 30 days.  He didn't have an answer.

I did a little checking on my own…

The items below are both things that *I* purchased.  I bought one August 21st and the other on August 28th. These two items are between the date that the buyer that opened a case against me. You'll see that I can not open a case against my sellers.. Why was the buyer able to open a case against me?

suddenlysimply1

suddenlysimply2You can see that both of these screen shots show that "The deadline has passed to open a case."  How is it possible that that my buyer can open a case, but I can't.  Why are we using a defect system that CLEARLY has issues and is not ready for roll out?