Cancel and order?

[jamijewelsngems_0]

So I have an item that sold to a buyer and was paid for. I then get a message from them asking that the item be shipped to another address.  Big red flag, so of course I send two separate messages telling the buyer that I can only ship to the address provided with Ebay per Ebay rules but I can cancel the order if they would like and relist it so they can purchase it with the other address.  If I do not hear from the buyer, should I cancel the order anyway or go ahead and ship it out? I've only been a seller on ebay off and on for about three years but this year I have really tried to put my feet in the water to be a good part time seller.  I don't know if I want to stay with it because there seems to be a lot of scammers with no support from Ebay itself.  

[inceptions]

eBay gives you all kinds of support. That doesn't mean you don't have to take precautions yourself. One of the ways they support you is to give you Seller Protection when you ship to the address on the payment.

The one thing you didn't mention was whether you verified that the request came from the buyer ID who made the purchase or someone with a different ID. If it came from another ID, it's a scam and you should report the message from the scammer (there is a report link in the dropdown on the message) and ship to your buyer.

If the request came from your buyer, I would not ship - he wants the item to go to a different address. You should cancel the order, relist, send the buyer the new item #, and instruct him to repurchase, selecting/adding the correct address when he checks out before completing payment.

For the future, there isn't any need to ask him if he wants you to do this as you can't ship to a different address, so this is the only solution. Just let him know that eBay requires you to ship to the address provided at checkout and this is how you can accommodate his request. That way, you aren't waiting around for a response. His response will be to either repurchase or not.