tttbrian,
buy.mall! is known to sell hacked players with fake memory chips so this is why your player crashed in the first place, also I notice he is no longer a Registered User at eBay which is not a good sign.
If the player is new then it may be using one of the newer versions of firmware 9.0.48, 9.0.50 etc. If this is the case there is very little chance of recovering your player because there are so few of these firmware versions available for download so finding a match for your player is possibly worse odds than winning the lottery. I think we only have one 9.0.XX series firmware for 1.5 inch LCD players on site.
You may find your best course of action is to file a dispute through ebay or paypal to get at least some of your hard earned cash back but if he is no longer a registered user then even that may not be possible.
If possible you should open the player and check the memory chip (largest chip on the mainboard) serial number details in order to verify the players true capacity. You will find information on chip sizes here:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/samsung-a...rs-vt1692.html
If you do open the player there is also a smaller square chip that will be labeled ATJ20** let me know what this serial is will give a better indication of what your players firmware was and if there is any chance of recovery.