You should be looking at HED wheels.

You're not going to find Zipp with an aluminum brake surface unless you want some 14+ year old wheels

This is a tricky one to do sight-unseen, because wheels are in a pretty hostile environment. Stuff I would ask or look for in the pictures:

• No rim edge damage (very minor nicks are OK)
• True & round (no side-to-side wobble or out-of-round)
• How many miles on them (proxy for bearing condition)
• Type of riding - road surfaces & how much riding in rain (proxy for bearing condition)
• Brake track condition (subjective description to understand any unusual wear on the braking surfaces)
• Do all the spokes feel the same tension?

I am.

All of this, with the additional consideration that excessive riding on salted roads could also damage spoke nipples (which would make truing the wheel very difficult).

If buying online, ask seller to send you a video, where you look at the wheel rotation head on (front wheel) or from the rear (rear wheel) to check for wobble. From the side to see if it looks round. Cross check sounds from other videos, there Will be a difference, But any odd sounds Will be a tell tale of damaged/worn bearings and hubs. When purchased either yourself or lbs service the eheels, check for roundbess, spoke tension and service hubs/bearings

"do you have your own hat?"

Oh, no, wait... that's a question for someone applying for a lion tamer position.

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These are all good tips, one thing I would certainly be curious about is the usage patterns. Most bike racers will put wheels on for race day and train on a different set but lately I do see more people riding high-end wheels all the time. If someone was using them as a daily drivers for a while that would be a bit of a flag, also if someone trains indoors a lot and leaves the wheels on the bike, they can end up with a lot of sweat dripping over the spoke nipples.

I am pretty cheap but would be more inclined to buy fancy wheels either new or from someone local so I could look at them and hopefully know the history. I had a set of old zips I was looking at and I took it by a mechanic friend and he took a flashlight and shined it along the edge of the wheel and you could see how it was starting to bow out where the spokes connected, indicating it was an old wheel getting towards the end of its life