US Customs question. Receiving item from overseas.
 

I recently purchased a Comand head unit for my Mercedes via eBay from a seller in Australia. The seller mailed it promptly and it arrived today. Upon opening the box I could tell the front of the head unit was loose. Upon further inspection all of the screws holding it together were missing. None were found in the box or packaging. I contacted the seller and they replied " your US customs must have damaged it as we packed it well and no screws could have fallen out." I agree it was packed decent. However the fact remains there were no screws. This allows the face to bounc back and forth destroying several ribbon cable connectors. The seller agreed to refund my money, still awaiting that. So my question is does US customs disassemble electronics? Would they leave evidence? Paperwork? Now I'm curious.

Short answer is no, they have high tech ways to "see" inside something if they were that interested.
They wouldn't be interested in this nor take it apart. Your seller is full of crap.

Clever username.

I'm curious about that myself. I had a camera in my luggage on a trip once. It was packed in among my clothes and had LOTS of padding. When I unpacked it the battery door was broken clear off the hinges. No way I packed it like that and extremely unlikely the door would have opened itself, which had to happen before it could be broken off.

Two possibilities: Seller took apart, could not fix it, did not reassemble it properly, sold it to the other side of the world, OR border control thought it was full of heroin/took it apart for fun, and lost the screws.

Which is more likely?

I know of someone who shipped a hovercraft, and had the hull on his hovercraft punctured by a forklift during customs inspection.

He had no recourse or compensation for the damage.

From what I understand, they have the right to inspect including taking things apart.

Typically Customs will re-tape a box with Customs Tape if something has gone through what they call an intensive exam. Very little import freight gets opened up.

I've imported hundreds of things and I don't recall ever having customs inspect anything.

My money is on the seller being at fault.

I agree it was the seller. There was zero dispute from them to refund my money. Just odd. I hadn't thought about x-rays being used to see what's inside.

If inspected, there's virtually always a US Customs inspection tag.

If it's physically inspected as mentioned there will be a inspection tag and tape resealing the box with "US Customs Inspected" on it. They x-ray everything that comes in and only physically inspect if something sticks out during the x-ray.

As the seller has not refunded your money he may be waiting till your complaint time runs out. If you don't file with ebay within 30 days (I believe) they will tell you to bad, so sad if you make a claim after that time.