I think I already have my answer but in the off chance someone has a solution -- is it possible to restrict who can bid on your items other than the two filters (countries you don't ship to or people with unpaid claims)?  I have some items up on the site and they're getting all these bids from people with nonsensical users names (leotig934gj3k) that were created today and have no feedback or history.  I'm not even going to bother sending anything out but then I fear I will just end up taking the hit from Ebay for being a bad seller.  

Ebay "customer service" just said they understand my hesitancy but couldn't really help me any.  

There is a blocked buyers list you can maintain. Also, those "weird" usernames with no feedback and accounts created today - those are new ebay users who do guest checkout. Wouldn't be very wise to block them ... everyone has got to start somewhere. Very low risk of getting scammed. I'd be more worried about expensive items that get bought by established users who haven't used Ebay in a while - it tends to be hacked accounts that do the scamming.

The blocked buyers list is under Account Settings > Selling Preferences. Screenshot: