It was just a single male from ebay.
I am an avid EBay seller and let me tell you this: I
ALWAYS OVERPACK my products with either bubble wrap, AirPouch air pillow bags, Styrofoam peanuts, or newspaper. I want to protect them to the best of my ability. We have all seen those videos of the FedEx man or the UPS man or heck, even the USPS package delivery man, throwing boxes out of trucks, throwing boxes up onto doorsteps, throwing boxes over fences, kicking boxes, shaking boxes..... Making sure you use lots of padding and cushion protects your stuff from even the worst of package handlers. I've sold all sorts of things, from durable items to completely fragile glass and electronics.
The seller in your case here, was clearly negligent in the packing process. If you did go through PayPal, then I am
100% certain that they will side with you if you open a case. I'd bet my bottom dollar on it. If you show them those pictures you showed us, then the seller doesn't have a chance. They will be FORCED to refund your money. They'll have no choice. That was one of the most HORRIBLE packing jobs I have ever seen.
If your PayPal is linked to your EBay account at all, then it will automatically be your default payment type when making purchases. If you used your credit card and it is linked to your PayPal account, then assuming you never changed your settings, it was by default processed as a PayPal purchase so that the seller gets immediate payment without having to wait for any possible funds to clear on a credit card. PayPal is automatic, that's why they require you to have 2 sources of money linked to it in case one doesn't work. In my particular instance, when using PayPal, it takes money directly off of my debit card if there is no money in the actual PayPal account. That's the default payment. If my debit card ever expires or something and I forget to change it on PayPal (yes, this has happened once), then my second payment option tells PayPal to skip the debit card and take the money straight out of my banking checking account, which is what my debit card pulls out of too. The only difference is, one option uses my actual debit card number to pull the funds to Paypal, and the other option uses my bank account number to pull the funds to PayPal. All coming from same place, just two different ways of going about it.
ANYWAYS.... definitely figure out what you got, and file a dispute if you can. And I absolutely promise you that PayPal will side with you if that's the route you took.
I'm guaranteeing it because PayPal and EBay favor the buyers unless circumstances arise when the seller is not at fault. Ironically, PayPal and Ebay are both owned by the same people. There are millions and millions of EBay sellers - if they lose some here and there, there will be thousands more join next year. They don't care. There's buttloads of sellers selling the same thing in most cases, so if an item is not purchased from one seller, it will be purchased from the next. It's the BUYERS they care about. If you piss off a buyer, chances are good they may not come back, especially if the seller was in the wrong and not the buyer. If the buyers never come back, less items get bought. This is bad.
It's bad because when an item sells on Ebay, the seller is charged a fee. That's how EBay stays in business. Ebay automatically takes 10% of the total price + shipping of the item you sold. When processing payments on ANY site with PayPal, then Paypal will
also take a small fee. If you receive money for goods or services (such as from selling an item on eBay), the fee for each PayPal transaction is 2.9% PLUS $0.30 USD of the payment amount you receive. That's a lot of fees the EBay owners make, all thanks to you, the buyer, deciding to shop there.
The EBay / PayPal owners are making a killing off of the sellers when a buyer purchases something, so they are going to favor the buyer in most cases unless the buyer is truly trying to scam the seller. This might be something like a buyer getting something, and saying it is broken, but the seller has proof that the item worked and was not broken when he/she shipped it.
In your case, you can see the cage was full and intact before it was purchased because you have pics. You also have pics of the packing job, and also pics of the broken glass and everything.
Luck is definitely in your favor. Let us all know how it turns out.
