If so, could you give me advice on cheap shipping? I can't find anything less than $25, and it seems unlikely that I'll find shipping less expensive than the actual puzzle. I got stuck with a KO Helicopter Cube (yeah, they definitely exist now ). I figure it's pretty likely someone here has had a similar issue before.

edit: eh, I feel pretty stupid now -- turns out I can ship it for $8 with USPS. Does this sound right?

Assuming you paid through PayPal, you can simply raise a claim and have a pretty good chance of getting your money refunded without shipping the item back. It is illegal to ship counterfeit items in the mail and $8 for shipping it back is still a lot compared to the value of the puzzle.

Yep! Go the paypal route if you took it. $8 seems about right. And DO NOT return that puzzle AND PAY for shipping it. The seller ripped you off. Not the other way around.

Well, the seller offered a 50% ($7) discount if I'd refrain from leaving negative feedback and drop the subject. The paypal route seems a bit involved (takes time, chance of failure, I have to prove the item is counterfeit and then that I've destroyed it afterwards). I'm tempted to just take his offer. I'd pay $7 to avoid the hassle, and at least I'll have something to play with while waiting for my curvy copter (from Meffert's of course!). A word of warning to anyone shopping for Helicopter Cubes though: the knock-off really is a piece of crap. Just buy the one that's on sale at ztwist.

It's actually usually quite easy with the Paypal route. I had this problem with an SD card once (2gb hacked to look to be 16gb). They were quite eager to give me my money back and I didn't even need to destroy the item.
Plus, the don't-leave-feedback stuff is against ebay's terms as well. That makes your case even stronger.

I'd push trough and give out a signal to the seller that what he's doing is not okay. It should be just one well written complaint and you'll have a full refund.

I'd say: don't accept the bribe and just let PayPal know. You'll be able to keep it, right? So then you have a free crap-job cube for mods AND your refund

No -- Paypal's policy for counterfeits is that the seller refunds completely, and the buyer destroys the counterfeit object. This actually sounds pretty fair because the seller is punished, the counterfeits aren't spread around, and buyers aren't tempted to take advantage of the system.