I wouldn't buy a cue THROUGH THE MAIL from anyone i didn't know WELL. You have huge events on the East and West Coast where there are literally thousands of cues right there for you to see.
There are also regular cue sellers in every decent pool room in the Country. Buy/trade in person!
I have bought cues on here from probably 5 or 6 different people. For the new, more expensive ones, I bought from people that I've seen selling on here for years with good iTrader ratings. I never had a problem with those deals.
I did see a used cue for sale on here that I almost bought. Then later, I saw it come up for sale at quite a bit lower price from the person who bought it the first time (I think 1k was the new price).
After I got it, it looked great, except for the fact that the shafts were a bit hard to screw onto the pin. I did some searching on the forums and sure enough, the guy that I bought it from had been asking people about this very thing with the cue before he sold it. I never even tried to send it back, even though he never mentioned this minor "issue" when he sold it.
I just put the cue away and never used it. Didn't seem worth the hassle. Although I did once buy a Richard Black cue for $2600. I returned that one because I didn't care for the workmanship of that particular cue. They took that cue back and refunded me with no troubles.
I hope that this situation works out for the OP.