No protection for buyers on Audiogon

Learn what "due diligence" means.  IOW.  You can ask the seller for invoice/receipt confirming purchase.  You can ask for photos.  You can e-mail or call the person and get a sense of the person and how they conduct business.  As others have said you can check feedback.   What I have not seen mentioned here or elsewhere, is that you can also see if the seller participates in the forum.  How long they have been a member.
Based upon your post.  It sounds like you just decided to jump in with both feet and hope for the best.  Is that correct?  If so, I admire your chutzpah.

I just had an experience with a new seller here that went badly.  I paid by Paypal per his accepted payment methods.  Paypal took the money from my account and put a hold on the payment to the seller.  He refused to ship the item even though Paypal had notified him that I had paid and that he would receive payment once the item was delivered.  At this point I have no control over the money, Paypal has it.

He asked me to call Paypal and tell them I have received the item so that he could get the money.  I instead called them and informed them of what was going on and they told me to open a case, which I have done.

I also disputed it here on Audiogon.  The Audiogon people were nice, but no help whatsoever.  So the money is gone from my account, and I'll never get the item. 

I am confident the case will be decided in my favor by Paypal and I'll have my money back shortly, but what a pain!  Definitely use a form of payment that protects you and don't fall for any trickery by the seller. 

Welcome to the world of private e-commerce.

I bough a cell phone on ebay that did not show up. I had mutable levels of protection: ebay, and my visa. Ebay ended up giving me a full refund after the seller said he shipped it and that is that. This is the type of protection I am saying Audiogon should have.

Ebay can do that because they're a lot bigger.