Chris,
I can also recommend ebay. I have never had any issues, especially regarding privacy.
Twice it happened that I bought an item that in fact was not available: I had sent the money and the seller was not responding to emails: it was for a camera I paid $250 and was a stressful situation as one can imagine! Anyway after 10 days or so of him not responding I filed a complaint with paypal (I had the good idea of paying with paypal) and about 10 days later I had all my money back! Turns out the guy had been doing the same to several buyers! A real fraud!
In the second case, it was similar and I got my money back from paypal very quickly and easily.
A few tips (in addition to the previous excellent ones):
- Always use paypal - it does protect you and its instant payment
- Always check the feedback of the seller: look for negative and neutral feedback although sometimes some people (maybe inexperienced users?) can leave neutral or negative feedback without discussing the mater with the seller beforehand or for things that aren't major: this is why you wanna have a read and also see if the seller responded and what the issue was all about.
- if you are unsure about things, ask the seller questions: they should reply quickly, but make sure there's enough time before the end of the auction so the buyer has enough time to answer.
- When selling, always ship in registered and keep the receipt with the post office stamp: this is to prove you actually sent the goods should an issue come up.
- If there's a problem, talk about it first with the buyer/seller first before leaving feedback. Any serious seller will do what they can to make a buyer happy. As a buyer, you are kinda expected to leave a feedback first before the seller does so. Sometimes sellers do leave a feedback after receiving payment, but many do not because then there is no incentive for buyers to leave feedback.
- make sure you carefully read the description when buying an item.
Hope this helps.
Ebay is great: great way of getting things, great way of selling things. You can salvage value from many things that you'd otherwise throw away! Have fun and if you have questions, post them here and I'm sure you'll find plenty of people to answer them
Cheers,
Sylvain