I purchased a felting machine for less than half price and I was very happy with it.
My understanding is if you pay with PayPal you can return/reject any purchase if you're not happy.

I purchased a used HQ16 longarm system on ebay! I didn't have a choice, living in an area where finding a used longarm is less likely than finding a diamond on the grass :-) I contacted the seller before bidding to check how she would take care of the shipping. I was happy with the answer. Also, she was a quilting studio owner who was just upgrading her system; living in a remote area, she had to use ebay to sell her machine. It`s the best purchase I made on ebay; the price was excellent, the shipping went well and I'm perfectly happy with the machine. It`s a risk worth taking if you take the time to check a bit the seller background and trust your instinct.

I bought a Featherweight and I love it!

No, not machines I do make purchases from ebay; but not big ticket items I don't feel safe about that I only purchase machines from dealers.

I've purchased three machines on eBay. The first two were Featherweights... no problems with those transactions. The third was a Bernina 1630. I was having trouble getting my 1630 repaired and just wanted one that worked while the other one was in the shop for months.

I always check the feedback score of the seller. This seller had lots of excellent feedback, but I didn't notice at the time that most of those feedbacks were for items that she purchased, not sold.

She was selling a stripped down 1630 that only included one foot and no hard case. That was fine with me since I already owned plenty of feet and had a hard case. The price with shipping was $361.47. It arrived professionally packaged. I wanted to have a maintenance done on it before using since I didn't know the last time it was done. The repairs that maintenance revealed cost me $575.00.

I could have returned it through eBay's guaranteed which would have included the shipping cost to me. Unfortunately, I would still have to pay about $200 for the maintenance and return shipping to the seller. I wasn't willing to spend $200 and end up with no machine at all. I had it fixed. That stripped down machine ended up costing me $936.47.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I notified the seller that I was going to leave negative feedback. I didn't hear anything from her for over a week. I left the negative feedback and heard nothing more for a month. She then contacted me and called me every bad name in the book. Apparently, she felt that she was the injured party. Shakes head...

I've purchased two machines on ebay. One sewing and one embroidery machine. Never had a problem with either. I also sell on ebay. As with other advice, check the seller's feedback. I wouldn't buy from anyone with less than 97%.

I have bought a couple on Ebay, one was good and the other poorly packaged and the bottom of the box fell out amd the machine did too. I have contacted the seller and they are going through their insurance. Takes forever, but they are working with me. I do know however that if they don't resolve it I can contact pay pal and they will.

Bought a Bernina off E-Bay. It never worked.

I have purchased 5 sewing machines on ebay without a problem 2 featherweights one for me and one for daughter both very good and also 3 Pfaffs 2 for friends one was 1470 and one a 7510 both people very happy with their machines just this past Christmas a Pfaff 7550 and she loves it I always read feed back very carefully and also ask seller questions and I have delt with some very nice people but all of them has also offered a 30 day warranty and they were all packed very good so I would not worry about it just check and see if the seller will answer your questions

my friend ordered a embroidery machine, it had so many parts missing she called it a "paperweight".

I would rather go to a local store and look at their previoiusly loved