I would think those 'easily removed' dings are probably not going to affect the playability of the horn, but then again we are talking about ebay. Quite often the seller seems to be upfront about minor damage by trying to show it in photographs of the horn; as with all things on ebay it's 'sold as seen', but there have been numerous horror stories where faults and damage are a lot worse than described, and the vendor offers a strict no-returns policy. The saga of Jambo's (now my) Dolnet alto springs to mind.
I bought my YAS62 on ebay, where it was fortunately quite accurately described so I pretty much knew what I was getting i.e. a slightly lived-in alto with a small dent (about 8mm) on the side of the crook, so nothing to really worry about. Also, I paid cash and collected it which I think is something I'd do again if buying a horn that, no matter how well-packed, could get damaged in transit. This also means that a vendor selling a horn in worse condition than described can't fall back on the excuse that the horn was fine when he handed it over to the courier.
Finally, I think the only way to avoid scratching your sax would be to never take it out of your room, studio or whatever. Once you start playing out, a bit of scratching and minor dinging is almost inevitable if you're anywhere near a mic stand or another musician on a small stage where there's not much room to move. I'm more concerned about getting an accidental biff in the gob via the mouthpiece (done it, not nice, and blood-soaked reeds don't work so good) from walking into a mic-stand than I am about putting another scratch on my sax.
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