Sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience with your sale Mike. I know I sure learned a thing or two from this as did others. I recently completed a purchase from an antiques dealer and was nonplussed by his shipping methods, $$ by Big Brown or Priority Mail through the USPS, USPS insurance ran additional. PayPal was how I paid for the chip. Thing was though, both these methods allow tracking online so I would guess the seller had the right idea about covering both ends of our deal and experience with shipping items of some value. I know I'm gonna take all that into consideration in the future.

Yeah, I pay S&H when I sell online, I think it's a great selling point. I don't sell much and I do it for fun. I also self-insure ALL my items that I sell. So far that just means I can replace anything that doesn't show up. For anything that I can't replace easily because of scarcity, I'd slap insurance on the item myself! After all, if the buyer has fulfilled his part of the contract by paying for the auction item, I'm obligated to make sure he gets something of value in return... tha's just basic to me. I've punched out of more than a few eBay auctions when I started reading the "not responsible for..." tapdance in the fine print.

Hope you have better eBay luck in the future Mike.