Ebay's buyer protection kicks in; the orders will be canceled and they will get their money back if they open a "item not delivered" type of help request.

It's sad that buyers get upset when they don't hear from a seller for whatever reason - but what's the solution from Ebay's point of view? They have built-in protections that protect sellers from having their accounts hijacked while simultaneously protecting buyers from nonresponsive sellers. It just takes a few weeks to process those refunds.

From the point of view of us - as sellers - the solution is to let trusted family members know our login information before an emergency arises so they can manually cancel listings, refund orders, and preserve our reputation from negative feedback (not that future on-line feedback really will matter in the grand scheme of things).

From the point of view of us - as buyers - I can only say that we should give sellers the benefit of the doubt. People were quick to attack my neighbor for not keeping his shrubs trimmed, not knowing he was dying of cancer. We can all take it down a notch or two.