I had a user claim damage via ebay message to me, but they never provided photos to prove anything. When the 30 day limit was up, I submitted a claim with no photos, just screenshots of the messages from ebay. I got a refund...and refunded the buyer.
I had another claim it didn't arrive, also got a refund for that one (it didn't say 'delivered', so it never got that far in tracking)
At this point if I could get them to wait about 3-5 days after it says delivered, and they say it still hasn't shown up, I would just refund and then wait the 30 days to file a claim based on the messages from the buyer.