> It might be interesting if some fairly ubiquitous payment processor offered a shared buyer blacklist.
The article claimed eBay looked into the buyer's history and didn't see anything else like this. Maybe they didn't look hard, or maybe this was their first time, but such a thing wouldn't have helped in this case, at least.
eBay would only be one limited view into the buyer. A broader view might reveal more. Maybe they create new eBay accounts over time also. Based on experience, I doubt eBay did much research.
The article claimed eBay looked into the buyer's history and didn't see anything else like this. Maybe they didn't look hard, or maybe this was their first time, but such a thing wouldn't have helped in this case, at least.