About 3 years ago I made my first purchase thru Audiogon and paid by personal check. Make a long story short the deal went south and the seller (expelled by AG) kept my $420 and the merchandise. If I'd used PayPal etc. I would have got my money back.
Beware of PayPal fees
I live in Israel. I have recently purchased an audio item from Europe. I agreed with the seller that I would pay his PayPal fees. When I checked initially about the fees I read something like 3.4%. To my astonishment they charged him (me) 5.2% with all sorts of extra fees. Beware!