Always watch a couple of auctions to find out the going price for what you want before you bid,

Don't use hotmail, something always goes wrong, you either don't get the message, it gets over filtered, or you can't log in all together cause of their HIP (human identification process) which btw doesn't work very well if you have zone alarm.

And never get into a bidding war, if you're max bid is more then 75% of the cost of something new, then just buy it new.