Firstly I will say one thing. Ebay is not intended to be utlized by carribean countries in my oppinion. We haven't got the demographic of online shoppers for it to be worth including an ebay for jamaica. However as you can see there are various other country specific ebays such as http://ebay.fr or http://ebay.ca and so on. If your in the carribean, your new to electronic commerce and intend to make use of the great deals you might come across on ebay there are a few things you should know and will Need.

1. Credit card
2. Paypal account
3. United States mailing address
4. Patience
5. Patience
6. People skills (how to read people)

Lets now go through the list and give the reason for each item's importance

Credit Card - The most common method of conducted electronic commercial or non commercial transactions via the internet. Funds can almost instantly be moved from buyers credit account to sellers account. for more information on the inner workings of a credit card.

PayPal Account - Technically an ebay companion in reality. One can seldomly purchase on ebay without first having a verified paypal account. Preferrably a United States Verified paypal account which requires a united states address and a bank account which uses said address.

United States mailing address - To safe your self a few dollars on shipping and duty fees. Get one of these. There are a few inexpensive currier services available for usage in jamaica. example Global Courior , Mailpac and Quick Mail (preference to quickmail - fast, reliable, and timely).

Patience - Be patient because these ebay people dont always ship ontime and working up a headache over a situation that you really are powerless to correct doesn't make sense at all.

Patience - Did I mention patience? I'm not kidding on that one.. Seriously.

People Reading Skills - I hope you have the ability to read and understand people. Do not shy away from reading a sellers feedback and if your too lazy to read the feedback and you get robbed its your own damned fault. Blame no one but your self. Dont always be fooled by high percentages of seller ratings. Read those feedback.

My first personal ebay experience wasn't extremely great. I noticed that the sellers were very cold hearted towards new users. There wer even items listed that you couldn't buy unless you had 3 positive feed backs or at least a 3 or more items purchased. Another issue is for the non verified united state addresses There is no way in hell for you to purchase some items and these are typically the ones with the good deals.

The first item i purchased I was refunded the following day. Even though i supplied a United States mailing address the seller insisted for a US verified address with paypal before he could sell me the item. (security reasons clearly). After learning of this Most of the handsets i came accross were under similar rules so I couldn't find anything that shipped world wide.. until.

A friend of mine Spaz  with his l33t15t (leetist) searching skills fund a brand new device like i was searching for.. for a  low price of $340 us dollars + $20 for shipping. He purchased one for his self and later refered me to the seller. His item was delivered to his United States mailing address in 2 days. he didn't get his package untill a few days after due to altercations with Global Cuorior services.

The seller sent feedback with spaz saying. He could sell me a brand new htc which he was about to list on ebay for auction. He could also sell it directly through paypal so i could get it cheaper meaning it would exclude the ebay listing fee. making the phone $344  with shipping. I whole heartedly agreed because his feed back was 96.4% in the green (positive) as well as I had a close friend of mine purcahse and safely got his item. So there shouldn't be any problems right? 

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aproximately 2 weeks have elapsed since the prucahse on september the 8th 2007 and still no item has arrived. Nor is there any valid tracking information as the initial package shipped was delivered to the wrong address and the new package that he sent usps tracking number still shows no records what so ever.

The overall gist of all this is a perfecly good ebay pruchase where everythign seems legitimate can still go horridly wrong. The seller claims through ebay contact form email that he was robbed, his laptop and his yahoo and ebay account was compromised (hacked). Now I the consumer is left in the perverbial rock and a hard place with nothing tangible to hold onto.

I took the following steps.

1. Contacted seller through ebay contact form letting him know im upset and i want a refund so i can purcahse a new device.
2. Filed a paypal dispute for paying for an item that i have yet to recieve.
3. And Later today I will call the seller to make him aware that i have done steps 1 and 2. 

Be Extremely careful when purchasing anything not only from ebay but on the internet. But give extra caution to ebay if you see horrible communication listed under the sellers feed back stay away. The worst situation is when youyou are left in the dark about an item you purchased and you have no clue where your items is and your money is already gone.