EBAY seller ADVICE wanted - help me watch out for a potential scam

[dark]

Guys, I'm new to selling stuff on ebay, I've sold a handful of things, but I've bought stuff on ebay for years. I've got an auction going right now where the high bidder has done some very unusual things imo.

1) He continued bidding up to, and then past my very high and optimistic "buy it now" price.
2) The prices he is bidding are more than double what the game I am selling has sold for on well over 10 occasions in the last few months, and there are plenty of copies of the same game via different auctions, that are currently active and are available for much less.
3) The buyer has zero feedback and looks like he registered just to bid on this item as he joined in the last couple days and has no other logged history.

The item usually sells anywhere from $80-$110, and my auction is currently at $200 with days left to go on it. There were of course a few other bidders initially, but for the last 60 or so dollars its been a back and forth between this fellow and another guy, and the 0 feedback guy has upped his bid a couple times recently in anticipation.

Now this could just be that the 0 feedback guy is new to the whole ebay thing and this is all be nothing to worry about, but since this is a high value and desirable game, and this guy is doing more than one unusual thing for a buyer in general to do, I want to know what to look out for in the case of a paypal scam/fraud by this person.

For example, I've heard of buyers who have access to compromised paypal accounts sending messages to a seller to send the item to a different address than the one on a paypal account, the seller agrees, sends the item and receives payment - and then the actual owner of the account sees the transaction and rightfully files a complaint with paypal - who then take the funds out of the sellers account. Clearly I could watch out for the buyer telling me to send to an address different from the associated paypal account address, but are there other similar scams I should watch out for? Is there any recourse for me if I'm defrauded by a buyer? Or do sellers just get the shaft on all online deals on buyer centric mainstream websites?

[Hedgeyourbets]

Usually the seller gets screwed over by an automated system but it depends on the nature of the scam, make sure you send to the registered address, get a tracking number when you send it, email the buyer before you send with updates on the status and see if you get any kind of reply

[dark]

What if the buyer is using paypal as a one-time transaction and doesn't have a permanent account? Paypal allows you to pay via your credit card info, along with an address, and send it to the seller for ebay transactions. In that case, how can you tell if an address is registered or verified? Is it acceptable via ebay rules to refuse to sell to an unverified address?

[Lum]

I'd hazard a guess of shill bidding.

[dark]

Yeah, except this is my auction and I'm not shill bidding it XD

Regardless, I just double checked my auction in the last minute and Mr. 0 feedback has since retracted his whopping $300 bid and is no longer the current high bidder. Presumably he discovered he could buy the same game for half the price on several different auctions.

EDIT: wow, the high bidder who was in a bidding war with the fellow also retracted his within a minute or so of the other. Possibly was shell bidding by a fellow who is selling the same item - but inadvertently shell bidding on the wrong auction. My item is back down to below $100, sucks to be me lol

[ddxcb]

wait for the payment to clear.

[Hedgeyourbets]

If it were shill bidding wouldn't it be dark or someone he knows doing it to push the price up? :/
Also i did not know they could do that but if you've shipped it with a return address and kept the tracking number, the fact that you can prove that it has been delivered should be enough I think. But I think there is some way to set a feedback minimum on ebay so like set it to "don't allow buyers with less than x amount of feedback bid on my items" or something of that description

[dark]

I think I'm going to end and then relist because of the whole bid weirdness. I'll add in a small minimum feedback requirement too.

[dark]

wait for the payment to clear.

Unfortunately paypal penalizes new sellers, making you wait 21 days for the payment to clear (or 3 days after the item is registering as delivered)

[subbie]

Anytime I sell stuff on ebay (rarely), I always put in a note that bidders with zero feedback must contact me first and that I always reserve the right to revoke a bid.

If what you got happen to me I would have removed their bids early.

Unfortunately paypal penalizes new sellers, making you wait 21 days for the payment to clear (or 3 days after the item is registering as delivered)

I really hate this. I get why paypal does it but it's total BS. If you don't use their tool to generate a label they don't give you any money even if you put a DC number in the system. It also does not care how long you've been a paypal user either (they pulled it on me even though my PP account was well over 2 years old and used in numerous back/forth transactions). =/

-edit-
Also I moved this to the OT section of the forums. This does not belong with the sales threads (as it is not a sale).