I like the suggestion of offering to pay for the escrow company of your choosing.
Let me tell you, the scammers are out in full force.
If I may share something that happened recently.
My family likes iPhones. We've been using them as a family for many years, upgrading every two years.
I have always sold our used phones on Ebay, and have gotten surprisingly high resale values each time.
Never had a single problem. Until this time...
We had 4 iPhone 7's that were in excellent shape, so I put them on Ebay two auctions at a time, so I wasn't competing with myself too much.
Ads clearly stated no PO box and only sales within the continental US, because I don't want to deal with foreign shipping.
Each listing got the usual "Text me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I want to buy your phone", which I always ignored.
One sold without incident.
One had a winning bidder who was later revealed to be in China, so I cancelled the sale. Offered a second-chance sale to the second-place bidder - who ALSO turned out to be in China. Total waste of a week of my time.
Ebay doesn't reveal the winning bid address until the auction is complete.
Relisted and next winner said he wanted me to ship to his family member's address, because he just moved out of his dorm.
Sounded reasonable, as isince I've asked for something to be shipped to a different address on occasion (but I wasn't trying to scam).
I googled the alternate address. What came up was dozens of scam warnings. It was a warehouse in Mass. that is used a shipping point to - you guessed it - China.
The scam works like this: They pay you right away and ask for item to be shipped to alternate address (not the address on file with Ebay). Item gets shipped (and even signed for if you want). Item is shipped to China. Shortly before time limit for filing complaint (after you have thrown away shipping receipts), the buyer opens a non-ship complaint with Paypal and Ebay or makes a complaint that the box was empty if a signature was involved. Paypal ALWAYS sides with the scammer. You have no Ebay seller protection because you did not ship to the auction address specified in auction - it's in the fine print.
This buyer had an extensive Ebay history - years of hundreds of positive reviews. Yet when you go back into the history, many are on the same day from the same three accounts. So Ebay rating is total BS.
Fortunately, I checked out the address or I would have been out an iPhone.
I cancelled the auction and sent the guy a nastygram, saying I know he is a scammer. Got no response (of course). I reported him to Ebay, but I'm certain it went into a black hole.
The only cool part of the transaction is I learned that if you void a sale on Ebay, they automatically credit money back through Paypal and all fees are removed. So that goes smoothly, if you ever wondered.
I decided to sell the remaining phones (for a LOT less) to a company that buys and sells phones, from whom I've purchased phones in the past. Very reputable.
All it takes is a couple of scammers to turn you off from something you've been doing for years.