Well, that's my advise. I usually don't buy records off of eBay from sellers unknown to me. I just got home a couple of 10" LP's. One was advertised as NM unplayed and the other EX on the vinyl "beautiful condition". Let me tell you, I listened to the first track on the "unplayed" one and there were clicks all the way through the track, VG/VG- in my book. There were scratches which made the noise. "Unplayed", yeah right. I didn't even bother to listen to the whole side. The other one had loud ugly pops and even a small skip on the first track, took the needle right off after the skip. G in my book.
This is what happens sometimes, I guess, when you taka a chance on an unknown eBay seller. I've had some good experiences with unknown eBay sellers before. But it's all a lottery. From now on I'm strictly buying from my highly dependable sources and professional, senior rare jazz vinyl sellers on eBay. No more unknown sellers. No more risk taking. Follow my advise and you'll be allright. I'm just glad I almost never buy from eBay. If that was my only source of rare jazz vinyl records, then this hobby would be trickier, to say the least.