I've bought all of my guitars from Ebay, mostly from the US and had them shipped as repair items to Europe (saves 21% VAT) plus the US list prices are about 40% cheaper than in Ireland. Always go for the high feedback sellers only, also there are tools that will allow you to see all of their negative feedbacks to helps make the decision. I only had trouble once but I went after the guy big time. Discovered he had a guitar shop, found the website and found a big testimonial from the local newspaper - so I wrote to the editor telling him that his paper was being used as a referral by a criminal. Then I contacted the local sheriff department - also found out who the guys parents were (they had a chain of businesses with the same name) and sent a copy of all communications to his dad. I also went to everyone who left him a negative feedback withint he previous month (all this happened around the same time) and had them write to the newspaper and sheriffs office too. Eventually I got my money back in full but it took 3 months after I got him struck off EBay along with a signed apology. Should have seen the signs though, a guy with 2000+ sales that has 98% feedback is not that good - especially if the negative feedback is more recent.