yes, here's what you do:
1) get verified. no whining, just do it. if your bank charges for the wire transfer, then get a new bank or another bank of the side.
2) get upgraded to premier. no whining, just do it. i know, paypal will ~3% of the money, but you gotta pay the piper. unlimited credit card accept, 24 hour 800 number for support, and other neat features.
3) only ship to verified addresses. if they try to give you a song and dance why they can't, ask them to provide you with their phone number, have them call you from that phone number to a phone with caller ID, call them back at that number, and try to authenticate with the eBay phone number or phone book. i did this to confirm identity and it seems to work.
4) always get at least shipped + delivery confirmation for small items (under $50 or so). if more than that (like $100), don't ship via USPS. ship at least Fedex ground or Fedex 3-day (don't trust UPS unless you are shipping a monitor or something big and heavy).
5) watch out for people wanting you to ship to indonesia, russia, ukraine, or other countries with high internet fraud and large credit card rings.
6) watch the trolls list, and always check ebay feedback/heatware feedback. for ebay, send a message to the ebay account and have them reply back from that email address. it is very easy to claim to be user abc with a +500 and not really be.
it is kind of a scary place out there, but with some internet smarts, you can make it =)