I am looking to buy a desktop off of a person from Tom's Hardware however he is not using PayPal because his account got locked from the last computer he sold.

Now since this isn't a very repped base site my payment options are limited, so I was thinking of using Bank Transfer as I want to ensure protection for me as a buyer.

I'm planning to send two bank transfers (my own bank account) and my girlfriends and I want to know the basics of it.

Is there anything to ensure protection against me in case the deal goes bad?

EDIT:

Also where can I do a bank transfer? I know there are options to transfers for online banking but is that different then actually transferring money to another person?

There is absolutely no protection with bank transfers. Period. Any bank will tell you that once the funds have left your account, there is nothing you can do if something goes sour.

To do the actual transfer, you will need to go into your physical bank branch with the following information:

His Full Name
His Address
His Wire Transfer Routing Code (different from the routing number on his checks)
His Account Number

From there, your bank will be able to initiate the transfer.

In my opinion, I would not do it. If the deal seems too good to be true, just walk away and wait for something else. It is just not worth the risk. With items like that, buy them on Ebay or from someone that will send the package and require a signature upon receipt.

Alright, thanks for the information it will take a few days to even get to a bank because it's currently a snowstorm over here so I'll guess I'll just order parts off NewEgg and try and build my own.

Hell, ship them to me and I can build it for you and ship it to you. Not even kidding.

I have built a total of 3 PCs and each one of them works perfect to date.

Yeah I just ordered $650 in parts and it's coming in I believe after the weekend since there's a snowstorm up here in Washington so hopefully I am able to put it together myself, looked up a few videos and I think I have the jist of it, never really installed anything besides GPU/PSU.

It is pretty easy nowadays. If you have any problems with the POST, shoot me a message. I have endured just about all the problems possible when building a new machine!

Good luck with it!