Buyer made offer higher than Buy It Now price

[jacks-sloan]

I am selling an item on ebay for a Buy It Now price of $300 or best offer.  I am not doing an auction on this item.  I received a "best offer" that is $500 which is $200 above the Buy It Now price.  Is there any reason I should be concerned if I were to accept this offer?  It just seems odd to me that someone wouldn't just pay the BIN price.  The buyer hasn't messaged me or anything and their ebay account seems legit to me.  Could this be a potential scam?

[vintage-car-magazines]

It's not a potential scam....it IS a scam.

[jack_bucks_ghost]

the buyer will probably ask you to include $200 in gift cards to make up the difference

[rock.star]

Anyone who offers more than needed is up to no good. 

[ittybitnot]

 Could this be a potential scam?
@jacks-sloan 

If they are using the "best offer" feature with no message, you are not going to know until you accept the offer. If at that point you may get the usual "text me" scammer who wants to discuss payment off site then you will know for sure. 

If you think about,  it either the buyer is incredibly stupid or a scammer.  The ID is typically not an exact indicator.  All buyer IDs have 100% feedback rating, and often they are using hijacked accounts to play this.  Look for recent activity, feedback left/received.  Most of the budding criminals used to just "message" you about how interested they were and to call/text them your email to discuss it further.  Lots of people are hip to that so they are using the "best offer" feature, and wait to try the tactic after you accept.

[wesk_36]

The buyer is either incredibly stupid to offer more than the buy it now price when they could simply purchase it for $200 less, or they are setting you up and using your greed against you. They are not a stupid buyer, they are a thief. This is a common scam often used against new sellers.

If you were to accept this scammers "offer", they would then ask that you text or call them to take the sale off ebay, and to "arrange" payment which would be followed by a spoofed email saying that they paid and it's OK to ship. The thief would be counting on you to NOT check your account for payment.

If you don't believe this, just accept the offer and sit back and watch.

[simba6]

SCAM

Place them on your blocked bidder list too.

[luckythewinner]

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@jacks-sloan wrote:

I received a "best offer" that is $500 which is $200 above the Buy It Now price. 

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100% scam. He made an offer because he wants to set the fishhook without having to actually make a payment. 

Once you accept his offer, he will attempt one of a dozen different cons to trick you into shipping the item without getting paid. 

[tdumonde2014]

Can you think of any logical reason why the buyer wouldn't just hit the BIN button and save themselves $200.00?

[sundowner]

This one does sound fishy. But I've had a few offers above the starting price when it was an item that was a collectible and the buyer knew my listed price was a below market rate. However, none of my scenarios was for as high an offer as yours. I listed a small collectible once at $7 and got an offer for $10, the transaction was legit and everything went well.

The significantly higher offer in your case is interesting. I think if you accept it, just let the standard eBay process hold; the buyer will have to pay before you ship. If like the other posters here have noted, the buyer is full of excuses, then cancel, block, and relist.