It has come to my attention recently that there are buyers who are abusing ebay procedures to their own ends and penalising their sellers in the process.  Some buyers are entering high bids to ensure that they win a large collection-only item and honest buyers with slightly lower high bids lose out.  What these unscrupulous buyers then do is to arrive to collect the item and proceed to critique every aspect of the product in order to get the item for less than it was won for on ebay.  This is extremely underhanded for two reasons:

• First, it allows the unscrupulous buyer to beat off the competition with a high bid, when they should not have been the high bidder as they may not have been prepared to pay the most for the item.  If the unscrupulous buyer knocks the seller’s price down significantly, one of the underbidders may have been genuinely prepared to pay more and therefore should have been the winner of the item.
• Secondly, it means that although the seller has in many instances been bullied into accepting a reduced price for their item, they will still pay ebay final value fees on the amount that the auction ended for -  a dual loss for the seller.

My advice is, if you find yourself with a buyer who won't pay the agreed amount, create a dispute to ensure that your fees are refunded for the high price auction and relist your item.  You may find you will get more for the item and will pay accurate fees based on the amount you have actually received for your goods.