putney32 - You've mentioned one option out of very very few available to sellers. I also think one other option is to only sell to buyers who have no strikes or a certain feedback level but that is actually dysfunctional policy when the feedback is skewed entirely in the buyer's favour. Unfortunately, placing the buyer on your block list does not resolve the systemic failure that OP mentions and that I support. Doing something on an individual level, by savvy people who know about the strategy, will not ensure 'collective accountability' on eBay's part. eBay must do something about this from a systemic level which offers an umbrella approach.

The first thing eBay can do to make feedback more valid is to put in place an automatic negative for buyers who get a non pay strike. It really is a no-brainer. But the longer eBay fail in their duty of care by allowing people responsible for bad transactions to show a perfect feedback rating, the longer sellers like myself will feel misled and deceived. Over the last month alone I have suffered 2 failed sales from non-paying buyers with perfect feedback. If their feedback showed a history of this behaviour, I would have handled it differently and I would have spared myself a lot of time and stress. I already block sales to anyone with a non-payment strike, so that strategy did not save me from the so called perfect buyers!