I bought a hand plane (woodworking tool) off of Marketplace. I paid with PayPal, received the hand plane in a timely fashion, all seemed good.
A week later, I got a message from the seller asking that I mark the listing as 'received, or whatever they want, so that they will release payment.'
We then proceeded to check every possible box for online scams. He asked me to request a refund and then Zelle him the funds. He gave me a sob story of bad divorce and having a really hard time. Sent me pics of a weird rhinoceros artifact that 'probably belongs in a museum' but he's trying to sell for $7k. He even claimed to have spent almost 45 minutes on the phone with PayPal, but hung up because the language barrier was infuriating. This, I believe. We had a running conversation for most of the day. Lots of 'you're a really good guy for trying to help me out, etc.'
In the end, he initiated a full refund through Marketplace, and it hit my bank account this morning. I agreed to just write him a check, which I think I'm going to replace with a money order/cashier's check and drop it in the mail.
Is this some long game scam, or just one of the weirder Marketplace encounters I've experienced?