Lying to protect yourself isn't the way I would go about it, but thats just the nature of my spiritual philosophy. Explaining to him that after consulting with likeminded patrons, you decided it was in your best interest to only sell to USA buyers.
This way if you do get negative feedback, which you probably will either way, you can show your future buyers the correspondence in question. Most everyone will still buy from you if they know the details of this "negative" instance.
Honesty is always best. "Brutal" honesty can be done tactfully nearly all the time.
Blonde Buddhist
getting the phone back is already NOT keeping the commitment seller made with buyer. to be 100% honest in this situation seller should ship the phone to buyer... but as the phone is already being returned to him, he might TRY saving his negative feedback too ....
ebay only allows you like 50 characters for feedback (that is the only space you get to explain your self) ..how exactly every one would know the whole stroy behind a negative feedback ? negative feedback always hurt seller