Buying an online business on EBay, is it really worth it?

I felt a bit curious to see what people would go to the extent of selling on EBay and found that people are selling online businesses. Are they worth buying ? are there any success stories, or is it better to start from scratch. I have fair skills in html, photoshop, and flash, and I have created websites in the past, infact many of the business designs for sale seem tacky, but there whole way of putting together with php and stuff, i figure that might take a while to study, is it worth studying it? instead of buying pre-made busineses that I might even end up getting bored with through lack of customers.

When buying existing businesses, keep the following in mind.

The "profits" stated are BEFORE the new cost of the purchase of the business is factored in. The person you are buying it from didn't have to pay what you are paying.

Truly successful business owners rarely look to sell with a few exceptions. 1. Cash flow for another business venture, 2-illness and 3 retiement. I can tell you that it would seem odd to advertise it on Ebay, but you never know.

To pursue something like this, I would require a lot of background documents. Tax returns, paypal accounts and bank deposits to name a few. I would also ask for access to their Google & Yahoo Web reports for the site. This would show you if they are really getting the traffic they are claiming.

Good luck