It is a shame when it's your grail watch. I just missed buying one of mine (Carrera 1158 CHN) and only just caught the one I did - another buyer made an offer the same day but I had already transferred the money a couple of hours before! Phew! I was still a bit nervy until it was actually in my hands.

I've generally had overwhelmingly positive experiences with eBay - over 600 transactions now, as seller and buyer, and probably less than five of those have gone awry. Even then, most of those were resolved ok, though one took over 6 months to be! When it does go wrong though, it seems to go very wrong and the seller and eBay sometimes seem to conspire against you. I still like it, it has things I would otherwise not be able to buy and that's a big attraction (and drain on the wallet) but I don't think it's what it used to be.

Good luck with the ChronoTrader post - I only have the one experience buying from the forum and it was very positive! At least the people there know and care more about the watches they are selling than some eBay sellers...