I want to purchase an item from a private seller.  I want to pay with
some kind of check or money order instrument with funds that would
only be released to the seller when I received the goods as promised. 
If I use a personal check, there is no way to prevent the seller from
cashing my check before the exchange is complete and satisfactory.  We
cant use paypal. Any ideas?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 12 Dec 2003 19:48 PST

You may want to use an online escrow service.

Here's a good description of how such services work:

https://www.escrow.com/solutions/escrow/process.asp

Does this sound like the kind of thing you're looking for?

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Clarification of Question by edwat-ga on 13 Dec 2003 13:15 PST

This would be a kind of escrow arrangement.