How would the buyer possibly have had enough strikes to warrant being blocked JHS ?

As mentioned above, that buyer was given strikes by at least 8 sellers, we know because we asked them, and Ebay didn't dispute that whe we spoke to them. They just kept removing them as they were obviosly happy with the explanation/excuses for non payments.

By gagging sellers from telling the truth about the buyer in the f/back they can effectively hide the fact that most of the strikes get removed.

If you are still not convinced that setting prferences always works,  thinking they will protect you from s....heads feel free to speak to Ebay, as they have changed the rules somewhere along the way. Used to be 3 strikes and you are out.... now, nothing could be futher from that!