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While Amazon.com itself is essentially flawless in its selling prowess and integrity, its "Used&New" section is inhabited by all manners of independant stores and auctioners. While most of them are reputable, none of them are quite as risk-free as Amazon itself - you can view seller ratings. Anything under 4 or 4.5 stars (if you're marginally paranoid) isn't worth your time or money.
One option I've heard of, but don't know enough about to verify, is to use a debit/cash card. Supposedly, there is no line of credit, so there isn't any way to spend more money than is in your account. If you create a separate account and only deposit enough money to buy what you want at the time, you will at least protect yourself from having the number stolen and used to ring up thousands of dollars of purchases in your name.
There is, unfortunately, little you can do to prevent the seller from simply not sending you the item. This rarely happens with large retailers, since even a few cases of that would cause a severe dip in business and reputation. Most online retailers will also reimburse you, no questions asked, if it is the first few times you claim to never have recieved what you paid for.
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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.
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