Is This A Fake Or Not?

It may not have happened recently (under their guarantee), but yes, I have seen many reliable reports where PP only refunded the balance in a bad seller's account, worded almost exactly as I described above.

I don't know how aggressively PP is trying to get faith in buying on ebay back with their current guarantee. Perhaps the recent poster who knew the lady who bought $4000 in fake silver dollars can update us.

One significant change is that PP has instituted a holding policy on funds from questionable sales. By "holding the poke", they are in a much better position to make guarantees, since they're using the money from the transaction, not their own money.

As far as PMing info, there would be a lot of researching involved. You can search http://www.actionsellersmotivators.com or paypalsucks for examples.