I'm sorry to say that, but if you spent 15 min researching the topic prior wiring the funds, you would still have your money.
There are numerous threads, here on AudiogoN and other forums, with tons of usefull advice on buying used grear.
I have 12+ years experience (with over 300 closed deals) with both selling and buying expensive gear on AudiogoN with ZERO fail rate. If that number was not impressive enough, 100% of my deals were int'l ones (I'm from Poland, you were so nice to single out, without any good reason) and most of them (I would say 90+%) relied on bank wire transfers.
Here are my top 5 ways on how NOT TO get scammed:
#1 for me is always a phone call. Within minutes you will know, if you are dealing with audiophile or a scammer. Scammers are no audiophiles. They have zero knowledge of the equipment they are listing. They just found out this niche and try to exploit it. Ask him about the item he is selling, his gear, his past experience - you know, thee usual audiophile chat.
#2 is to check the sellers identity through a distributior. Those are all small markets. Out of 47 european countries, 27 has less population than New York city alone ! Distributors and dealers tend to know their customers very well, so in most cases that is not be a problem.
#3 Check the forums. Very often ppl use the same user name on AudiogoN and forums. Many of them have long forum history. Contact him via PM on that forum and ask if that is him who is selling the gear.
#4 Ask the seller to take a custom pic for you to verify he is in the possesion of the gear. It can be a sheet of paper with a text written on it, or an object put on top of the item. You can ask him to put a fork, or any other common item, on top of the gear. Anything that he would not be able to find using google would work. Since there is still slight possibility that the scammer will forward your request to a genuine seller selling identical piece of gear in another part of the world, and then forward you back the requested image, I usually ask for a pic with his full name and city, say John Smith, London.
#5 Ask him to send you an email from his company account. Not some gmail or yahoo freebie stuff. Scammers do not have an access for some HSBC, BBC or DuPont corporate email addresses.
Even if that is a smaller company, you can try to find tham using google and google street view. I was once buying 30k GBP speakers from the UK, so I visited some bio-tech company his email was pointing to, called their office and asked the secretarry to put me through. Needless to say, two weeks later, the speakers have arrived at my door safe and sound.
You can use all, or some of them. Be smart. Use common sense. If you are not smart enough, you will be scammed on a local, PayPal sale.
If you limit the ads to those available locally or those that can be paid by PayPal, you will seriously limit your options. For many expensive items market is very limited and only buying/selling globally gives you a chance for success.
Not many of you realise, but there is a good reason for the sellers NOT TO use PayPal: it is not safe for the sellers. That is right ! Just visit sites like PayPal sucks to read some horrifing stories. One of my favourites is the guy who sold a $6000 trailer. 6 months (!) after the sale, PayPal sized his money, as the company whose CC was used to make the payment claimed the person who bought the trailer was not authorised to use that CC. Same for stolen CCs that can be used to buy stuff. I'm not even mentioning buyers who want you scam you from the very beginning using PayPal (there are scammers on both sides of the fence).
I don't know about you, but for me risking say $5-40k on a PayPal sale (often to a guy with only a fraction of my feedback, or often with zero feedback) is more that I can afford...
