I need some advice from a seasoned ebay user..

On 12/11, I bought an item BIN from a vendor for my girlfriend as a Christmas present, and immediately paid through paypal. I received purchase and payment confirmations.
12/12, I receive notice through ebay that item shipped, with a tracking #.
12/13 I received a notice that the seller wants to cancel the transaction. Notice below…
Reason for cancel transaction request: The seller did not provide a specific reason.

Seller comment: Dear buyer, I do apology for didn't send out item yet, because its been back order at this week when i try to get from distributor, so I issue you full refund through paypal already; Please forgive me for this case; Thank you
Click the "Respond now" button to accept or decline this cancellation.
If you don't take action by Dec-20-2012, the seller will be able to cancel the purchase without your consent.

I figure, OK, and I’ll give them a day for the paypal refund to go through.

12/14, I have yet to receive the refund, so I send the vendor this…
Please refund the purchase price so that I can confirm the cancellation of the order.
Thank you,

Vendors reply…
Dear buyer: we have already send out your item, can we know why you would like to cancel the item. Thank you

I click the tracking information, and nothing shows up.

My response…
I received this message from you through ebay yesterday cancelling the order on your end...
Tracking the package using the tracking number you posted shows nothing.

12/17, I again send message to vendor…
You stated that you had already refunded the purchase price for item #280733845805 from your correspondence on 12/13/12. I have yet to receive the refund. Please do so within 24 hours.
Thank you

Vendors response…
Dear buyer: we do apology that our warehouse last one has been defective, so we cannot send out the item that is being defective. We have been back order with our distributor, and so far the pacakge has not yet been ship to our warehouse yet. Thank you

I responded with the following…
You yourselves cancelled the order and told me that you refunded the purchase price through paypal.
I am still awaiting the refund.
I have since purchased item through another vendor.
Please refund me the purchase price as you said you already did, but have not.

I have yet to receive any refund through paypal.


Now, when I go to the resolution center, I can either confirm the cancellation of the transaction, but it warns me to only confirm this if I haven’t already paid for item, or if the vendor has already refunded me the purchase amount. (Which is why I was corresponding with the vendor) Or, it says to decline the request to cancel the transaction.


What should I do?



Thanks for any advice.

Tim