I have bought from ebay and have been lucky that I have had no problems so far. I agree that the best thing you can do is check that feedback and their rating. That being said I do agree that it might not be foolproof but it can throw up a red flag to someone that might not be on the up and up. I tend to just stick with books when buying from ebay. I have always been afraid that if I buy something electronic that I might end up with a defective product or get scammed all together.
I do have a question though when you report them and ebay steps in do they really investigate it or are you basically out your money?

I've bought and sold on Ebay, nothing too big but I did purchase my Nintendo Wii from it. I'm always a bit wary and read everything over a bunch of times before bidding. Luckily I haven't been burned yet but I have heard many stories of bad things happening to people. Your best bet is to read all the fine print and only bid on sellers who offer refunds on defective products.

Ebay can be great for some products you just have to be careful in using it.

No I usually only get small items on ebay I think the most I've paid for an item is $50. But for the most part everything does run smoothly. The only thing I have ever had an issue with is the shipping it took soooo long one time. But eventually I got it.

Anytime you see "all sales were finals and that no returns/refunds were accepted" assume that something is broken its just that simple. I worry too much and never purchase from eBay or other places for fear of something like this.

I bought a laptop computer on E bay once and it performed beautifully for about a month. Then it up and died. It had hardware problems that the seller likely knew about. Got rid of it before it broke down once and for all. My own fault though. I should have known better.

I haven't purchased anything off eBay that costs over $20. You set your threshold for how much money you can lose without wanting to blow a fuse and then you go hunting for merchandise on eBay. I have purchased laptop parts on eBay and I have been successful so far. But the parts have all been less than $20 so I would not have been too upset had I been scammed by the seller. The site looks so junky that it screams SCAM! Be careful on eBay or actually, anywhere you shop online without a physical location you can visit locally if there is a problem.

I won't buy electronics on eBay. I do buy soft goods such as comforters, bed linens, yarn, etc. I've never had a problem as long as I watched who I was buying from and watched their feedback and what was said about them. I've even sold on eBay and would always give more than I had to in order to satisfy the buyer. But I do understand that not everyone is trustworthy.

I have used Ebay all of once. I was trying to sell a vehicle, not a great one but not a bad one either (mostly cosmetic issues I just did not have the time for). Ebay dinged me when the sell did not happen and even after reading through all of their TOS stuff and calling them to confirm this before hand, still got got.

Selling cars on eBay sucks. Well, maybe if you sell the right type of car. I tried listing my car for $13,000 and the cost for listing the car was over $100. Heck, I could have taken it to Carmax and just dumped the thing for less than that price. If it had sold, I would have had to pay somre more money to eBay and PayPal for the car. Shees, they are murderous with their fees on eBay and PayPal.