I think the whole mess has actually gotten better. At work, where I handle several of their accounts here, we were seeing several each week, most a blatant case of the buyer wanting something for free.
It really got bad around the time eBay stopped allowing sellers to leave negative feedback on a buyer who didn't pay. It was bad enough that they stopped listing any items that attracted young buyers or kids. BMX bike parts, video games, and toys were all big problems then. The blocked bidder list grew from a few dozen to over a thousand in a matter of weeks.
One that sticks in my mind was a seller who had bought at least 20 bicycle hubs, all the same, all new in the package from the mid 70's, suddenly claimed we were selling counterfeit items. Claiming that no one could possibly have hundreds of any one item that old. (The fact was we had thousands of them to be listed).
Their main deal is buying up old or dead inventory, sometimes things come right from a main warehouse and the quantities can be pretty high. That don't make them counterfeit.
I couldn't figure out if the buyer couldn't grasp the fact of 'New, old stock' or 'vintage, never used' or what but we ended up blocking a buyer who had up to that point spent thousands of dollars with us over several years.
He got one set of hubs for free, but we never sold to him again. I had spoken to a few other sellers around that time and he did the same thing to them after just as many sales in the past.
Its sad to say it but it goes right back to the thought that most people will steal if given the chance or if they know they won't be caught. Then when eBay took away any recourse the seller had on a bad buyer they just enabled this even more.
