Why did eBay issue a refund to my buyer without any impact on me?

Of course I am not complaining! But this is never happened before and I don’t really understand how it works…

I have a 100% positive seller rating going back 14 years, Based on a very eclectic history. So yeah I’m a good guy.

I sold an Apple power cable, Three of them so far in fact. The first one I sold, I screwed up and didn’t realize it had sold, didn’t get it shipped, the buyer objected to eBay, I finally got it shipped… Then I see today that the buyer has complained that the cable does not work and he did the complaint on 26 December. (I’ve been sick for the past two weeks).

I also see that eBay reminded me about it, Stepped in, reviewed and refunded the buyer and informed me that I did not have to reimburse them and that this was not going to have any impact on my seller profile or rating. According to the resolution center report, I was not found to be at fault. Okay, that’s nice.

Again, I am in no way unhappy at this outcome of course… I’m just puzzled as to why given the fact that I did not do anything to try and fix this because I wasn’t even aware of it, eBay let me off the hook. Is that just the standard procedure the first timeA solid seller who’s been with them as long as I have has an incident like this, is that her buyer protection from eBay works? If so, that’s pretty cool.that’s nice to know that history and reputation can cover your ass when you blow it, and that’s how it should be. But it’s just my guess. Does anyone know for certain? (That is the reason I put this in general questions, I am hoping for a factual answer)

Incidentally, the buyer also has a long term solid reputation he’s not some 0% newbie.

Ebay did this to me one time too, refunded the buyer and told me I was not at fault for a low value item. However this buyer did have spotty feedback(this was back when sellers could leave too) and seemed to be generally “unpleaseable” finding any reason to demand a refund.

Ebay has a 100% guarantee program now. In full:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html

That policy states that they would expect me to reimburse them for their reimbursement to the buyer. Which is what I would expect. It doesn’t explain why they are NOT expecting reimbursement from me.