service has gotten worse,but not much. Ebay is buyer oriented, this means they are somewhat anti-seller. And the big scammers are sellers.

Paypal is a bank, and should be regulated as such. The fact that they are not makes it dangerous to deal with them.

As for the OP, looks like a scam, Paypal would reflect any pending payments. Sounds like a paypal password scavenging scheme. Are you using a link to the auction that the buyer provides?