Guys, really appreciate all the input and valuable insights ;-)
I got to say in the realm of buying "site unseen" (pun ;-) that I've just had a serious reminder just of late, that acoustic guitars are much trickier and there is a lot more going on that is unseen, and don't count on getting meaningful answers unless you are dealing with the most knowledgable of sellers, and of course honest as well.
The return stories I could tell you are legion... Years back, I sold two really nice Nikon manual focus lenses (prime lenses) to a guy for around $450 shipped (eBay), and lo and behold, while I'm having my morning coffee he calls (he'd already called me before buying them (unusual) to ask me to walk over to the window with the lenses and describe any little nick or rub mark on the barrels, and the lenses were extremely minty, and I unfortunately have eagle eyes for this kind of stuff, seeing dings, scratches, "micro swirlies" ;-)
Well, he's back on the phone because he wants to send them back. And I say, why? And he tells me he found another lens like one he bought from me, but this one is "totally mint" and he wants me to go on eBay (gives me the item #) and look at it.
Wow...
So he wants to send mine back, freakin sucks, $450 and I probably already spent it...
This is where the story has merit ;-)
He wants me to refund him right now while he still has my lenses in his hand "because he'll miss out of the other one if he doesn't have the money right now"...
You know, I'm a nice polite person... so I nicely and politely told him "Buddy, I feel for you (really...) but I can't do that. You need to send me my lenses back, packed as good as I packed, the same exact way in fact, and when they get here, in the condition they left, I will refund you, but not before, can't do it".
He's in NYC, I'm in Eastern WA (The Scablands ;-) and it's three days shipping Priority, sometimes only two (God Bless the Post Office ;-) and he starts whining about how "he's gonna lose this deal" and I had to find a nice and polite way to JUST SAY NO! and get off the phone and go lick my wounds somewhere.
The lenses came back, not a thing wrong with them. Stuck em back on the Bay, off they went somewhere else to a happy camper, never heard anything but the good feedback I got from the guy ;-)
Here's another good one;
Before I ever started eBaying, I'm visiting one of the antique malls that had just been renovated from an old brewery, and talking with the owner and eBay came up and he tells me how he sold a set of Elvis plates on eBay, mint, never out of their boxes to some lady somewhere. Well, she writes to tell him to tell him the plates are horrible, "dirty and chipped on the corners", and he says "lady, just send em back if you're not happy", so she sends em back alright, her old dirty chipped up Elvis plates, probably been kickin around her house for twenty years...
He gets em back, light goes on in his head... ahhhh she swapped hers out for some new ones. So, he contacts her, of course she denies it. This guy isn't a guy you mess around with like this (it cost over a million to restore that old brewery, The Schade Brewery, Spokane WA), and he gets a hold of eBay, who tells him to go pee up a rope or something, so he gets a lawyer and he sued her, cost $1500 and he won a judgement against her. Of course she probably never had $1500 at any one time in her whole life and I doubt she paid it, but for him, it was simply a matter of principle.
I have dozens of others, I'm dealing with a refund situation with a Russian guy with one feedback right now, I knew he was trouble before I ever sent the package, but I did anyway.
Anyway, what I've recently re-discovered is that with electric guitars you can see most everything on the surface, and unless you're dealing with high dollar vintage stuff where you need to "look under the hood", it's fairly safe, and I have bought GOBS of guitars, pedals and a maps that way.
I should also say at this point that if you get a serious bargain on an instrument, you know it's a gamble going in, so cut the seller some slack for what you end up holding in your hands..
Back to the acoustic guitars, a lot more complicated. I was just reading Dan Erlewine's book this morning (2nd edition) and he wisely advises taking a mirror with you when you go look at an acoustic guitar, look at everything, the braces, bridge plate, etc.
At this point I'll pass on a decent tip.
When I got the '87 Washburn 12 string with the top issues, I was trying to find this old plastic (Japanese) 70's Ford Courier inside rear view mirror that I'd used a few years ago to look inside a guitar, great mirror but of course I couldn't find it. So I went into my motorcycle box and dug out a super light plastic Acerbis folding mirror for dirt bikes, it's over at my luthiers right now with the Washburn, and he LOVES the mirror! I already gave it to him, I had two of them. It's a perfect size to go through the hole, won't hurt anything even if you forget it in there and pickup the guitar, and man oh man can you see the underside of the top! Strings have to be out of course, or loose anyway.
Another tip (from me); I put a business card on the fingerboard between the nut and the 1st fret, capo, and then unwind the strings until very loose to do whatever you need to do to the guitar, as in pulling bridge pins or unscrewing the tailpiece on a LP style guitar so that you can change a pickup or whatever, or shim a neck on a Strat, loosen the strings, loosen and remove the neckscrews, remove the neck, place your shim, screw the neck back on, tension the strings, in an out in five minutes!
The capo will keep the strings in neatly in place on the capstans of the tuners, no muss, no fuss, been doing this for years for instant acess to the top of a guitar, or in the case of an acoustic, getting that mirror and your hand inside of it so you can look around.
My Petzl "Tactikka" headlamp comes in handy too ;-)
Over and out, we're pulling knapweed in a field this morning, got three minutes to be there.
Anyway I placed the order in the afternoon, and the TRC was in my mailbox less than two days later. I've had guitars & amps arrive nearly as fast, though this depends as much on FedEx & UPS vagaries as anything else. As other folks have noted Reverb maintains a record of every purchase you make: what, when, who from, "paper trail," etc. I have had one item arrive not quite as described, and also needing some fix-up work on my part, but it was minor enough that while I let the seller know about it (and docked him in my rating) I otherwise let it pass.