First make sure your seller has great feedback. If a seller has 20,000 good feedbacks and 3,000 bad feedbacks I'd stay far away. I was burned by such a seller who was advertising brand name merchandise and sending out no name knock offs. Since he had 20,000 good feedbacks there was no help from Ebay when he sent me an item not at all as described and he got away with ripping 6 people off on the same item. There's no recorse with such a seller, not from Ebay, paypal, or the police dept.

 Next make sure You're buying new in the box electronics and not refurbished items. That same seller has over 2,000 negative feedbacks just because of this, he sells refurbished products while advertising them as new. Check out his other auctions or his Ebay store and if You see ANY refurbished items go somewhere else, they are more than likely all refurbished and being falsely advertised. The seller I dealt with falsely advertised a LOT of his tiems, but since he has over 20,000 feedbacks apparently Ebay or anyone else doesn't care if he breaks the law on Ebay. Feedback talks, big numbers of feedback talk the loudest. If a seller has more than 5 negative feedbacks, no matter how many positive he has, go somewhere else. Go to Walmart or Best Buy and pay full price rather than leave it up to chance with one of these shady dealers of lies.

 Also watch out for shipping rip-offs. If You buy a memory card the size of a postage stamp don't spend $10 on up for shipping. Send an email to the seller and tell him You'd like to buy the item but You won't pay more than the regular priority mail rate for it. If he refuses go somewhere else. I've seen shipping charges as high as $30 for an item the size of a postage stamp. Remember, shipping counts towards the price of the item! You HAVE to pay it and it does count on the total You paid for the item. There's LOTS of electronics sellers on Ebay that charge 4, 5, even 6 times the amount that the shipping should be. Do NOT but from them! If everyone stood together and refused to pay extremely high shipping fees then the sellers would either go out of business or reduce shipping to where it should be. Another good point, when doing any business on Ebay NEVER deal with someone who charges a shippind and handling charge. These sellers need to get their own websites and stay off of Ebay. Only a complete fool would pay a handling fee on Ebay.

 Check your local newspapers ads for the prices of the items You're looking for. A LOT of times your local store will have your item a LOT cheaper than from the rip off electronics sellers on Ebay that charge such crazy high shipping charges. Plus You can return the item at your local store. Just try returning an item to an electronics seller on Ebay and You'll be in for a shock. One guy from Georgia, an electronics seller, tried to tell me he never received my returned item until the Post Office tracked it down right to him. Still Ebay did nothing because that seller has 20,000+ feedbacks. Stick with small time sellers and You'll avoid a LOT of the rip off scams that the big 20,000+ feedback sellers get away with everyday.