Has anyone risked a "too good to be true" purchase online, and had a positive result?

[Exhibitman]

Do AH stories count?

I once made a purchase from Skinner. I forget why but I ended up looking at one of their catalogs and found a lot of miscellaneous cards. The single photo shown had an imperial cabinet of a minor league team a whole bunch of other miscellaneous sports cards, and a bunch of nonsports strips from a tough entertainment set. The description was trash and they were not helpful in response to questions, so I did my own research and was pretty sure that the cabinet had Frank Bancroft. I bid on what I saw and won it. The nightmare then began. Skinner didn't 'do' shipping so I had to contract with a third-party shipper to get the lot sent from New England to Cali. Much anxiety ensued. Eventually I was able to contract with a shipper who demanded $90 to ship a cabinet card and about 50 smaller cards. Rip-off city, but I had no choice.

The box finally arrives after weeks of waiting and it is huge. I open it up and find that one of the two cabinet cards besides the imperial had been improperly packed and broke in two in transit. Yay. My irritation was offset, however, by the bricks of bubble-wrapped cards. Apparently the lot was several times bigger than the cards shown in the photo; the bidders bid on 50-ish items; the lot was more like 250-ish items. One of the most fun and most profitable groups I ever purchased.