Buyer wants to cancel orders, do I have to oblige?

[unique_supps]

I'm just wondering about my obligations as a seller on eBay with cancellations.

I've been selling on eBay for a while now and haven't had too many issues when it comes to cancellations, I've only had a handful of people request to cancel after buying and most of the time they'll send me a message apologising and explaining the reason why they want to cancel which is fine I'm always happy to do that if they seem genuine, people make mistakes etc.

But this last one has annoyed me a bit.. A buyer sent me an offer for an item which I accepted on Monday, two days went by and he hadn't paid, he then sent me an offer on another piece which I accepted because I could combine the shipping (I have free shipping on all my buy it now's) the next day he sent me an offer on a 3rd piece which I thought was too low so I sent a counter offer which he declined, the next day he sent another offer which was more reasonable so I accepted that (now he has 3 pieces he needs to pay for)

and later that day he sent me one more offer on another piece which was quite low but I thought I'll accept it because he's buying a lot and I can combine the postage with the last piece.

So now he's up to over $900 in orders.. He then paid for the last piece which was $180 down from $350. I sent him a payment reminder for the rest of the items and about an hour after that I get a cancellation request from him for the first 3 items.. He hasn't sent me any messages explaining why he wants to cancel or anything.

Ebay has given me the choice to accept or decline the cancellation request, I thought about it but I don't think I want to accept the cancellation as it seems to me he knew what he was doing and If I cancel the first 3 items then I have to send out the last item and pay for the shipping Which is $55 plus take on the ebay fees so from a $350 item I'll get about $100. So I clicked the decline button but it comes up with a box that asks when you've sent the item, I haven't sent it as the buyer hasn't paid for the rest of the items so my question is can I only decline the cancellation if the buyer has already paid? Maybe I'm just being petty but it did annoy a bit as it affects my pay for the week and I had to spend time getting the items out of storage and will have to relist them on my website. 

Thanks for any help and advice

[jellybirddesigns]

Too many red flags already - and certainly no need to accommodate a buyer who is chopping and changing. The whole thing is going to end up being a bad deal.

Cancel everything with the reason "problem with buyers address" (so you don't get a defect) and then put them on your blocked buyers list.

[davewil1964]

Sounds like the 'buyer' is playing games.

Keep on making offers for multiple items until you accept one at a low price, then not go through with the others.

As jelly said, cancel them all using 'problem with buyer's address' and block them.

[unique_supps]

Thanks for the advice! I think that's a good solution, I wasn't sure if I was just overreacting but these things can be a bit frustrating as a small business owner on ebay sometimes. Thanks for taking the time to reply 

[unique_supps]

Yep that's what I thought as well, if he just had the common courtesy to explain why he wanted to cancel I wouldn't have been annoyed but seems like he knew what he was doing. Thanks!