What to Beware as Buyer or Seller on Ebay Auction: For One, Check Feedback

I have been buying and selling on ebay since we bought my son a "Charizard" Pokemon card back in the year 2000. Each year since then I've gotten a little more experienced at navigating the auction site. At the beginning of the holiday season, I hit 25 positive feedback and now that it's over, I have nearly 40.

Unfortunately, the past couple of months have taken their toll on my love for the site. While I was lucky enough to buy to hard to find items on my daughters list, and have them arrive in perfect condition in time for Christmas, several other experiences I had are making me leery of continuing my plans to sell every spare thing I own online.

The trouble began when I put a Playstation DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) Game up for $20.00. It was a classic, discontinued game and I expected it to go for at least that price if not higher. I was right. I had several bids immediately. It hung steady in the $30 to $40 range for several days and then at the end of the auction I had two bids over $60.00. Unfortunately, someone with zero feedback beat out someone with some very high positive feedback. She then took over a week to tell me that she couldn't find a dance pad to use with the game and had changed her mind about buying it. Ugh! I ended up paying the fees on that auction because I couldn't figure out how to get out of them.