cross-country parts transactions

I have had pretty good luck here. I've done personal check, PayPal, and postal money order.
Seems to me most want payment up front, which quite frankly seems to be BS...No offense to the sellers but, why should the buyer always assume all risk? Also many guys that want PayPal want you to send as "gift", which gives you NO recourse...If they don't want to absorb the fee, they should bump their price by 5% in order to cover it up front instead of asking you to cover it or go with no protection to yourself.
Postal money order is probably your best bet.
Feel the person out...I tell'em up front full name, address, e-mail and phone#... If they're hesitant to give all info, that's a red flag.
I then Google their name...
That can bring up some interesting ****... sometimes more than they'd probably like you to know... I'm sure there's more than a couple of people here with some "entertaining" history, I've even come up with tv news clips on one...
That much said, I've dropped about a grand with people here, and can't say I've been bitten once. Sometimes you just gotta have faith!