Thank you for your response, which is appreciated. I think you may have slightly missed my point, however.
I am now certain that this was the start of an attempted scam. I can only speculate that it was to do with a bogus payment so I am including the details here to help anyone else faced with similair circumstances.
The sequence of events was as follows:
1. The 'buyer' placed the highest bid in the very final seconds of the auction, which would have required their direct imput.
2. Having won the auction they then immediately cancelled their bid, and then attempted to contact me via the eBay messaging service. Their message to me included no name, explanation of their actions, or any other personal details whatsoever. Instead - bizarrely - I was asked for my contact details and the location where the car could be collected.
3. Intensely irritated - and confused by the apparent contradiction of them trying to cancel but also wanting to know where to collect the car - I thought it best to try to speak to the buyer direct to find out what was going on. I therefore replied to their message, stating that I understood they wished to cancel and suggesting that they contact me on my mobile number, which I supplied.
4. Up to this point I was assuming that they had simply placed an automatic bid that was higher than they had wanted to pay. I was angry, but I was prepared to be pragmatic and to accept a lower figure, if necessary.
5. The 'buyer' then phoned me. He stated that he knew nothing of the cancellation request, and that he wanted to proceed with the sale. He was currently about half an hour drive from my location. When I asked him how he would be paying he said by bank to bank transfer. I therefore agreed to text him my address, which I did.
6. I felt immediately that something did not sit right. I then realised that by the act of requesting to cancel his bid within moments of the auction ending I had no contact information whatsoever for the buyer. eBay was simply giving me the option to cancel the sale or not. No other information or reasoning was provided.
7. I then looked up the buyers feedback - and this is also interesting: he had 100% positive feedback from only seven transactions, but the accompanying comments were ALL negative. Every single feedback comment advised eBayers to avoid this individual. Yet every comment was rated 'Positive'!
8. The 'buyers' mobile number had shown up on my mobile so I called him back. I didn't mention the feedback but did point out - politely - that I would like more information about him before he attempted to turn up and collect the car.
9. I asked for his name, address and whether or not he was a trader. He responded calmly with all details I asked for. Tellingly, he badly mispelled the name of the road he said he lived in.
10. Thank goodness for Google Maps' Street View! When I rang off I immediately looked up the address, which was genuine, but appeared very run down.
11. At that point I decided that I'd seen enough. I accepted the cancellation requestvia eBay. I didn't contact the 'buyer' and he hasn't contacted me since. It was definitely an attempted scam, either to collect my contact details (which are readily available elsewhere, so I doubt it was that) or my bank details, or to take the car without paying.
12. The sad thing is that this is the second attempted scam I've experienced when trying to sell a car through eBay. The last one was pursued by the police. In addition, I then made a 'second chance' offer to the next highest bidder and have heard nothing from them!
13. So I've ended up paying my eBay fees, getting bids and yet still not selling my car!
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