Hi mate
Trying to help BoyBurning, I would like to point that in my opinion the key is the payment mode. If you have paid by paypal (not F&F), you have a good chance to be refunded if you claim to Paypal. If payment was done by any other way, unfortunately I think you should assume that you will never be compensated.
Assuming that cracking some brake levers during transportation seems quite difficult to happen (if so package will be clearly damaged), in my opinion brake lever was cracked when shipped and you’ve been intentionally scammed.
Same happened to me with a Klein attitude bicycle bought trough ebay some years ago. I paid 2000€ by bank transfer, and later I received a bicycle with two deep dents in the left stay, of course those dents were never mentioned even if asked specifically about possible dents or damages. Seller justified alluding transportation damage, theory totally denied by the good condition of the box. In my case, for ebay was quite easy to resolve the dispute: requesting to seller original high resolution picture of left side would be enough to demonstrate damage was prior to shipping.
Claimed to ebay, they did nothing. Later I realized that seller was a RBUK member using exactly the same nick. Was RBUK member and still is, because I denounced what happened to me in a post about scammers here in RBUK, and I do not think nothing happened to him.
So briefly, if paid by Paypal claim paypal. If not, don’t lose time claiming ebay as they will do nothing but waste your time and patience.