Again, possible. I would say, why did they open a request if they were unable to return the item, but perhaps they were hoping I'd refund without wanting it back (in which case I would expect - not just want - them to clearly state the problem specifically, not just open an INAD case).
From my perspective, they didn't help matters by not engaging with me at all. That, to me, was just rude, and it got my back up. Obviously, the fact that this was my first ever return came into play as well, but the fact that I had not had to deal with a return case before is not something I can hold them responsible for.
I'm a fervent collector of physical media, and, like many of that type, I am very focussed on the condition of an item, often to an obsessive degree. I therefore try to highlight even the slightest defect, so it stung me to have a 'Doesn't match description or photos' case opened with no detail as to what element of the DVD (case, disc, sleeve, or a combination thereof) the buyer believed I had described wrongly, or what defect I had not mentioned. I'm a private seller who puts care into their photos and descriptions. I am not Music Magpie or World Of Books or one of the other massive resellers who buy and sell in bulk, often with little to no regard for the item condition (which tends to be routinely stated as Very Good) and often with no photos of the item, or one or two stock photos.
Opening an INAD case with one of those big players without first contacting them is, arguably, an okay thing to do (although if I have a problem with something I've bought from them, I do message them first - to me it's just common courtesy, whether the seller is private or business, large or small). They're a business, and their business model is based on volume sales. I doubt that, as a company, they are all that phased by return requests, unless they keep getting them from the same buyer, in which case I'm sure eBay would step in (eBay would possibly pick up on that pattern before the seller did). I very much doubt that anyone working for that type of business feels personally affected when someone disagrees that one of their items is not in Very Good condition. [I acknowledge that not all business sellers are like these reseller behemoths, and that there are plenty of business sellers who exercise care and attention to detail in their listing descriptions & photos (and, equally, that there are many private sellers who are sloppy and careless with their listings). This does dilute my point, admittedly, but I'm using the likes of MM as an example of the polar opposite to the way a (decent) private seller goes about listing.]
Perhaps I'm just on my high horse, but my personal view is that those private (and business) sellers who evidently strive to be accurate in their listings deserve the courtesy of communication from buyers who have an issue with an item purchased from them. We could argue about how you can tell the former apart from sellers who are careless in their listings, but to me it's usually quite easy to tell (one obvious way is to see if the seller has relied entirely on eBay's AI in the description, with no wording of their own).
In this case, I do think that the buyer was trying it on. I certainly hope that they are not like your friend because last night, after thinking about how much of my day had been taken up with this (and the stress caused), I left rather sarcastic, albeit genuinely positive, feedback for them in the hope that someone reading it would ascertain the sentiment behind the OTT superlatives. I feel somewhat remorseful about that after reading your post, but I am far from perfect, and the scales of probability are still on the side of bad buyer behaviour. If I get a feedback revision request, however, I will change it to something neutral-sounding (it looks like you can only amend feedback upon receiving a revision request; you cannot delete it).
If the buyer had bothered to communicate with me, my attitude and approach would have been calibrated accordingly. They had the opportunity to do so before opening the case, they had the opportunity to do so when I politely enquired what the actual problem was, and they had the opportunity to do so at any other point before the case was resolved; they chose not to do so at any juncture, and that inevitably influenced my attitude negatively towards them. I am a living, breathing person selling items from my personal collection, and trying my hardest to describe them accurately, not a robot picking items in an order fulfilment warehouse for a company that just churns stuff out in any old condition (but lists it as Very Good), and is not bothered about one-to-one communication (indeed, such a seller would probably rather the buyer just opened a return request, and was spared the 'hassle' of having to deal with messages from them - the polar opposite to what I would like)!
So many things in this world would be better if people only took the trouble to communicate with other people.
