Selling or buying a computer on Ebay

I just a bought a laptop from a seller on ebay. Would I generally advise someone to do this? I'm not sure I would wholehearterdly do so because of the risks. In my case, I wanted a particular type of laptop: the compaq presario m2000---it has a fanatastic keyboard that is very smooth for little stress on the fingers (anyone who types all day long will know how important this aspect of a keyboard