For somethings like a wiper motor the fees are not worth it but for
the two big ticket items I've bought online (a $2000 outboard motor
and a $3000 laptop) I used www.escrow.com . essentially they hold onto
the funds until the buyer has the goods and says that all is in order
before they release the funds to the seller.

I found the outboard on Craigslist and asked the seller to set up a
private eBay auction for me at the agreed price in order to take
advantage of the protection that eBay offers, unfortunately we
realized after the fact that most eBay / PayPal protection does not
kick in until you have 50 feedback or something. So we went the escrow
route. I'd ONLY use escrow.com if I was looking for an escrow service
as there are scam escrow websites out there too.

eBay feedback is tricky anyway. I was ripped off by a eBay seller who
had 12 feedback. 12 is not a super high number but I thought it was at
least a respectable number of transactions. The problem was I did not
look at the individual transactions that the feedback was from, until
it had been a while without getting the item. Upon closer inspection
the feedback was for a bunch of $0.01 transactions. A nice addition to
eBay would be a total dollar value of transactions number to go with
each seller as a nice suplement to the feedback system.

With eBay and PayPal you really have to pay attention to timelines. I
am STILL trying to get an item that I bought in September from a
seller with 438 feedback (99.3% Positive). Unfortunately I let the
eBay and PayPal timelines lapse so all I have is the seller's
integrity now.

Chris

On 12/14/06, Mark Brush <mbrush@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if anyone can provide me with some advice.  I found someone willing
> to sell me a rear wiper motor via GoWesty classifieds.  The seller contacted
> me via e-mail and said he has one and he can be paid via paypal.  I was
> getting ready to put his e-mail address into the paypal system, but then I
> thought, "how can I be sure this'll work?"  Could someone just surf around
> ISO items, say they have something and collect the cash without delivering
> the goods?  I guess it's just the risk I take, but I didn't know if there's
> an easy way to check on whether someone is legit (or whether the paypal
> system can help make sure someone's legit).  I don't see the e-mail on this
> list, and I can't find it on eBay, so I just don't know.
>
> thanks for any advice - Mark B.
>