William wrote:
"If he turns out to be a scammer preying on eBay customers, what ability does [ebay] have to track the person down and protect their customers....eBay has a responsibility to protect themselves and their buyers and sellers..."

William, I can only speak from my own experience, but I don't see ebay being too concerned about protecting their customers.

I won an auction and sent my money to the seller. No item arrived. I contacted the seller several times, a couple of times got the response "oh, sorry, thought I mailed it" once or twice got the response "send your address again and I'll mail it tomorrow". Still nothing. I posted negative feedback and filed a complaint with ebay and that's as far as it went. No action was taken against the seller. Several months later I got an email from someone who won an auction from the same seller....asking if I'd ever received my item since they were experiencing the same problem with that seller.

I was lucky, the item was only $12, so I wasn't out much, but I also wasn't covered by ebay's insurance.

About a year later, I was dumping some old mail files, and ran across the emails I'd saved. Just for the heck of it, I mailed the seller a copy of an email where she'd said "I'll mail it tomorrow" and tacked on a note that the post office sure was slow. She responded saying my name was familiar, she'd had computer problems and lost all her files (I think she said she'd lost 3 hard drives), please send my address and what the item was and she'd mail it right out. I didn't respond. About 2 days later she emailed again saying the same thing. I sent the requested information, then deleted all the past and current emails from her. I hoped for nothing, I expected nothing, and I got nothing. I guess she needed my $12 more than I did.