I put an item up for auction on ebay and someone put in a high bid (higher than I was expecting) and won the auction.  At first I was delighted but then my excitement was soon dampened when the actual payment wasn't forthcoming.  I emailed the winning bidder several times but no reply was ever given and no payment has been made.

It seems that this person just wanted to sabotage the auction and there is nothing I can do about it.  ebay don't seem to have any punitive measures in place to deal with rogue bidders (apart form their utterly ineffectual black mark system - where you can a happily get away with two non payments a year with no consequences whatsoever).  As a seller you can't even leave negative feedback for a non-payer - so they can continue to behave this way and retain a 100% positive rating.

I noticed that this same person has a few items of their own for sale on ebay and I thought it might be a good idea to put in high bids on their items and then refuse to pay when I have won them...give them a taste of their own medicine.