[edbaus]

Ask him how much shipping is / where he is located. No mater where he is located tell him you are local and can pick up if that is ok.

Baring that, tell him you are a serious buyer and willing to do the deal, but need to do with escrow.com.

I won an auction for a $1800 carrera motor a month ago. The fellow was in Florida. I started getting nervous after I won the auction. Asked if he would do escrow.com. He told me that I had violated the ebay contract because his auction clearly says mo or paypal. I wrote back and said 'no problem, give me an address. I have a buddy that is local. he can pick up and give you a mo'. Said he was going to turn me into ebay as a no pay.

Did not hear another thing until a week later ebay wrote me and told me to not pay for the auction that he had tripped their security and they kicked him out. Good thing I did not send any money.

btw, I did an information exchange with him. Ebay has this thing that you can get a name and phone number behind the guy you are dealing with. He did not like that at all.

Ed