Actually the very first thing I bought on eBay was an external CD-ROM. It worked perfectly, and still does (I now use it for my netbook, which doesn't have a CD-ROM) ,but for some reason I heard bad things about eBay back then and stayed away from it for a few years. During the last couple of months I bought quite a few things, and all went well apart from the USB drive. As I said in another thread, I filed a claim with PayPal a few days ago and the seller hasn't reacted yet, which is not really a problem because if he doesn't I win automatically.... Probably the reason why I fell for it (and its price) was that I had also found real bargains and was starting to think that eBay is shoppers' paradise... ]:)