What has the seller got to gain by this? I mean..couldn't an item not recieved dispute not just be opened?
You never know - dodgy people out there, lots of ways to scam people...
I dont want to go into detail, but I remember buying something which was classified as payment via paypal - then the seller messaged me that his credit card was stolen, so they deactivated the paypal account (or whatever - I cant remember what he said at the time, but it sounded plausible) and if I could pay via bank transfer. it turned out that the account was an account where you cant pull money out again, once it is in and that was it. no way in getting it back - after this I found out via ebay that this person has been spamming lots of people on ebay before and they had just closed his account (again) - but they obviously cant do anything for you...)
xx