I'm a private seller and just had my sales limit lifted as a one off to sell my diamond ring. Within a day I had an offer via ebay message as follows: "I offered to pay you a total of £5,900.00 for the ring; which will also cover post office shipping cost."

This is £240 over the buy it now price. I checked and the ebay member had only been one for 2 days with no feedback and location as South Africa. Alarm bells going off I replied politely asking how they would be paying for the item and that I wanted to check with Ebay on any t&c's relating to posting outside the territory listed before accepting any offer.

I spent some time on live chat with ebay customer services who didn't seem concerned and pointed out that once I'd received a paypal payment is wasn't reversible so safe payment was assured before I send the item. I reasoned that assuming I sent the ring with adequate insurance by a reputable courier, on the face of it, it seemed like it should be OK.

Today I received another message from the ebay member as follows: "Thanks for your email, I am still interested to purchase the item if it is still available. I will pay you through Paypal. You will post it using normal post office as it is very safe and cheaper.
Simply send me a paypal payment request to my paypal email (here they spelled out an email address for them so it wasn't deleted by ebay private email editor) or email me your paypal email address to enable me effect payment for the item before shipment."

I don't see where the scam is (but I'm not criminally minded 😉 as I would not reply by private email, only transanct through ebay and paypal but something still feels very 'off' about this potential sale. I'd really appreciate any advice/feedback from more experienced members. I'd like to think I've just had a temporary personality bypass into a drama queen but this is one time in my life that I really can't afford to be ripped off and put it down to experience. Thanks in advance for any replies.