"I have proof that I did pay for the item"
???
What exactly does that mean?
Did you pay through PayPal? Using your PayPal balance? Your bank account (e-check)? Your credit card?
Or did you pay by another method than PayPal?
What is the "proof" you sent eBay?
Does your "my eBay" show "paid" for this item?
"An item I won did not arrived."
The seller confirmed receipt of your payment.
You have a claim against the seller. However, since you did not follow eBay or PayPal policy of paying online, your only recourse is against the seller.
I do not understand why you would state "...Ebay screw me". eBay had nothing to do with the problem which is clearly between you and the seller. The Buyer protection program only applies if you follow the rules (payment by money order voids the protection).
Go after the seller.
I have been in the mail order since 1987 and have accepted a large number of post-dated cheques over the years, both from Canadian and American customers and many for much larger value.
However, I never waited for cheques to clear before shipping.
Over the years, very few have come back. When they did, the debit usually showed in my online bank account within 2 to 3 days for Canadian buyers and no more than 5 days for American buyers (in my US dollar denominated bank account).
@i*m-still-here wrote:I've been following this and wanted to take a minute and ask about a loosely related experience I'm having.
You'd probably have been better off starting a new thread on a different board about this, but I doubt we'll be hearing much more from the OP on this thread.
My wife and I sold fairly regularly during the bronze age of eBay when PayPal was independent of eBay and not even available to Canadian sellers. We used eBay's Billpoint service which allowed our U.S. buyers to pay with a credit card although I suspect many of them just gave our listings a miss as they were so used to paying throught PayPal.
We opened a U.S. dollar account so that we could accept U.S. dollar cheques and money orders (except for the USPS "domestic only" variety) as paper payments were permitted on eBay at the time. Our credit union cautioned us that payments would take a month to clear because the encoding on U.S. cheques is formatted differently than it is on Canadian cheques and that the cheques would have to be "sent away" for clearance. Because the amounts were generally pretty trivial, we didn't bother waiting for them to clear before sending the item, and I think we had only one bounce back on us. As a percentage of sales, I think we had more problems with Canadian cheques than we did U.S. ones.
However, we never had payments to the tune of US$600, either, and certainly no post-dated ones.
Seeing as eCheques can be sent through PayPal, it probably would have been better in your case if you were able to accept one of those. For the money you lose to PayPal fees, you're getting faster clearance and better communication of the payment between you and your buyer.
Just out of curiosity, why do you need to call the bank to check on the cheque (no play on words intended) when you can just look up your account with online banking to see if it's credited or nixed? Or are we looking at a situation here where both buyer and seller are semi-luddites? 
@i*m-still-here wrote:However, I never waited for cheques to clear before shipping.
Not a good idea to encourage that kind of thing............ :). (by example for example)
The reason you can do that is because yours is small world. Everyone eventually knows everyone.
The reason I posted to this thread is because sending a MO or a check to a stranger in another country just seems so risky.
The world we live in is not one where that kind of thing makes a lot of sense.
Hmm. Did you see that I said the same thing in my post, and we were definitely dealing with strangers there. 
However, we were also dealing with sales that usually totalled less than US$100.
"Not a good idea to encourage that kind of thing........."
Different opinion here.
It is great marketing when you tell your customers you trust them and their cheques are respected, not questionned. It brings repeat business regularly.
Now, it is not for everybody and may depend on the type of products you sell and customers you service. However sellers/merchants who are risk adverse should avoid the practice.
This may have been brought up already, but I wonder if the OP has the communication with the seller recorded in their ebay message system? If the owner specifically requested a money order, that might provide at least partial proof of what the OP was taling about.
Unfortunately, if the seller opens a UID, the buyer will not only lose out on the item AND their money, but will get a strike against them, and because transaction will be voided, they won't even be able to leave feedback. This is a big double-ouch.
"Are you suggesting that it's good business to send out a $600 item the next day to a stranger I'll never hear from again when paid by US check? "
Not only "suggesting" but in fact stating and recommending it. However, it is not for everyone. Some sellers/merchants may not have the risk tolerance required. It also depends very much - as stated earlier (why do I always have to repeat everything) - on the types of products and customers.
At the end of the day, it is no different from many businesses shipping goods and give their buyers/customers time to pay (10/30 days or whatever). Most established stamp dealers accept cheques and/or send on approval on a regular basis (customer pays after satisfactory receipt).
Late last year, I sold a large lot ($7,000) of foreign stamps paid with five postdated cheques (one a month) to a dealer I never dealt with previously. It may not be the way you do business but it is quite standard for most.
And I would do the same again should the right buyer show up for some of my excess inventory.
"That's not good business."
You seem to have a very narrow view of the world.
Mail order has been around for hundreds of years. Payment by cheque or cash was the only way to do business. Yes people trusted people. What is wrong with that?
eBay/PayPal have only been around for fifteen. e-commerce s a new way to advertise products. But it does not change the basic principle of commerce.
Mail order also existed before credit cards were used.
You need to look at the bigger picture. Many real businesses still accept, in fact welcome, cheques.
Since the transaction you are referring to was NOT an eBay or PayPal transaction, their rules and policies have nothing to do with this discussion.
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