they will give you the money back if they find in your favour. I put in a dispute when I bought some skirts and spats by paypal (not on ebay) and some bits of it were missing. They deducted the money from him, but decided to give it back to him as it wasn't bought through ebay. I lost £90 and have skirts with 2 missing jacking point covers and 1 bumper spat.
I'm now waiting for Paypal to send me his address.