My question is for those with more experience than me, Ive bought like 5 items off ebay but never from a individual off a forum. Should I only deal with those using paypal? What can i do to protect myself?

My rule for buying off people on forums is to have a look around and see how much they post and what they post - also to see if they have sold anything before.. If they participate in the life of the forums in a positive way then I reckon they look trustworthy .. paypal is always a good thing - that way there is some level of protection and no one has to swap credit card or bank account details...

thanks! i got a offer from someone who just created their account seemed fishy to me

Nate- I wouldn't go based only on when they opened their account, as we are growing and they may have been looking for parts and came across our site - you can ask them abut ebay and other forums they were posting on - it wouldn't be unusual to do so. When the tires thread was going, one of the Canadian members anted to ship them to me and have me forward - we exchanged ebay info so he could see that I wasn't just going to steal his tires and go ride

Get their phone number and their emails or you could do COD and pay a little more..

Nate- I wouldn't go based only on when they opened their account, as we are growing and they may have been looking for parts and came across our site - you can ask them abut ebay and other forums they were posting on - it wouldn't be unusual to do so. When the tires thread was going, one of the Canadian members anted to ship them to me and have me forward - we exchanged ebay info so he could see that I wasn't just going to steal his tires and go ride

thanks for the input!