Business seller says no collection for faulty phone return, what are my rights?

[flowerpot13]

Bought a phone from a business seller with 30k+ sales on eBay, advertised as new, for over £100. It was a lesser-known brand, but I bought it because I am disabled and the listing advertised certain features that were important for my needs. The reviews were positive, so I expected it to work as described.
When it arrived and I set it up, it was clearly faulty: extremely slow, constantly freezing, needing repeated restarts, freezing when calls come in so I can’t answer them, repeated “Google Play Services isn’t responding” errors, and the date/time is incorrect and cannot be fixed even through Settings, which prevents WhatsApp working. The speaker volume is extremely low even at maximum (I am not hearing impaired).
I opened a defective item return and included photos and details of the faults. The seller has replied saying they cannot arrange a collection and asking what is wrong with it, despite the faults already being included in the return.
I spoke to eBay over the phone because I have agoraphobia and cannot use a drop-off return service. The eBay representative told me I can arrange my own Royal Mail collection, pay upfront, and that I would still be covered because it would be tracked.
I don’t know whether to do this and I’m worried about paying for the return and then losing my money. Can anyone confirm if this advice from eBay is correct? Should a business seller reimburse the return cost for a faulty item?

What does it say on the site about returns, I don’t think many companies pay for the return process anymore.

The seller is responsible for paying the cost of returning a faulty item. They should send you a shipping label. The difficulty might be that you cannot physically go out to post the item. Is there anyone who could do this for you?

If the seller provides a return label and it is royal mail you can go to royal mail online and book a collection for it. It doesn't cost alot. Used to be about 70p maybe less.

I have messaged the seller and asked them to request a royal mail return. I think my main worry now is that once they get the phone back, they will refuse the refund and try to find a reason. Has anyone had this happen with eBay returns?
I have kept everything through the eBay return process, included photos and details of all the faults, and I will make sure I use tracked return and keep proof of everything. I’m just finding the whole thing really stressful because the phone was faulty from the start and I don’t want to end up losing the money as well as dealing with all this.

To the best of my knowledge the Long Distance Selling Act AND statutory rights are both in your favour.

Any item sold has to be ‘last a reasonable amount of time and do the job for which it is intended’ while the LDSA protects you for something like 21 days. Rushing around so happy to be corrected!

Booking a collection is only 30p. Even special delivery is less than a tenner. Pay for the return postage, get it collected and keep all your evidence and receipts. Open a dispute if it's not refunded. Ebay refunded me directly when a purchase failed to arrive.