Yahoo internet life magazine had a great article on how to better use E-bay and tips/ tricks/ on bidding and spotting and avoiding bad sellers.
http://www.yil.com/features/feature....8&Keyword=ebay
One of the better articles I have read and had some good tips such as not bidding too early in an auction or using proxy bidding - both of these things drive the price up and make it real easy for a seller to bid up the price of his own auction by testing your proxy limit. - Also putting in a high proxy early basically guarantees that someone else will bid and bid until they top your limit - and then the cycle continues and the end result is a high price.
I also found out you can put in any ebayers id and see everything they have ever bid on - kind of like looking in their shopping cart. Weird stuff.
Read it and you'll also be pretty leary of private auctions - a good way for a scammer to easily rip you off.
Somehow I get yahoo internet life mailed to me monthly - I don't remember subscribing but I'm sure it was free and the magazine usually has some interesting stuff in it.