Thanks in advance.
I guess I'd look for a) the commission charged; b) evidence of a secure payment system, where the funds were 100% guaranteed before a transfer took place.
I normally do business by email agreements, with rare written contracts, and typically payment by wire transfer. If people have "trust issues" I typically tell them to get lost, go away, etc. as it was they who reached out to me. In other words, I'm less of a mystery than they are in many cases. ;)
Take a look at the auction houses # of domains listed versus the # of total sales for a year and average price. That pretty much tells me that the auction houses aren't a solution for the vast vast vast majority of domainers. The "solution" for domainers is skill in not registering domains, as much as it's skill (and luck) in what you register.
Auctions don't sell domains. Domains - right priced - will sell themselves.
Okay, that's a bit of a non-answer so hopefully folks who have participated in or used the various auction houses will do a better job of answering your original question.