bad experiences buying on line

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN! Don't let your love for the audio piece cloud smart business choices. It could be worse ex: no money/no product. How can you trust him at this point? Chances are if he is not straight up with his business dealings, he was not straight up with the listed condition rating either. It could arrive in lousy condition. Another good deal will come up. I have dealt with many sales via the internet (I am a dealer) and the unfortunate reality is you will eventually end up crossing paths with a flake. You just happen to cross that path early in your trip. For the most part... we have great group on AudiogoN.com. It is by far the best A/V internet trading site worldwide. IMHO, kindly tell him that you will happily accept your payment returned in official form (bank check). It is not worth the gamble. This hobbie has some great people... he is not one of them.
I smell a skunk...

Watch out for very cleaver buyers who claim problems with purchases - They buy a similar item they already own and replace parts from theirs with the parts from yours AND claim YOU have committed fraud! Happened to me a few times. Mostly with vintage gear-

Get your money back ASAP first of all. Do not let this guy sweet talk you or try to make it seem as if he is still reasonable - he's disrespected you more than enough already for you to completely write him off and take immediate action to protect yourself if it's not too late. Tell him by phone you're arranging to have the payment picked up and overnighted back to you and are eating the charge. If he sounds evasive and balks, try to cancel or stop the payment if you possibly can and eat that charge, but your money may adready be gone. Contact the local law enforcement like you said, and by all means get Audiogon on it without further delay. You've been too kind up 'til now. How much dough are we talking about here anyway? Best of luck, and keep us posted.

The seller has $1000 of my money. Now I find out he sold the piece to someone else and was listing it for them. It was the second guy who is backing out. I pointed out to him that an agreement to sell is a written and legal contract but I doubt that it will mean anything to him. He is supposedly returing the money but I would still like to find out what my legal rights are in regard to the sale.

I would also suggest posting some detailed negative feedback. This will help all of us avoid your predicament.