Been mulling this over for several days - whether to post or not, but I need to get this off my chest and I think everyone should know how this "deal" went down. You can make your own judgements.
On Sept 1, 2014, I responded to a for sale ad for a fully updated Palstar AT-Auto for $850 shipped. Stated I would buy it and could use PayPal. Simple and no haggling. Got an email back late that evening stating Robert was not signed up for PayPal and that we needed to talk and provided his landline number. I called him. We talked for a good half hour. He's a retired PhD professor from Columbia University living in rural Mass in the Berkshires. In his 80's. Had a real nice chat. Really friendly. I liked him. He said my personal check was fine and in fact questioned how come I'd trust him to ship gear without knowing him. He said they were so rural they had no residential mail delivery and only received mail at his p.o. box which wasn't checked daily. OK with me.
Mailed out my personal check Sept 2, 2014. We met on the air several evenings later on 80 meters and chatted some more. Real pleasant QSO. I asked him to shoot me an email when he got my check. No problem.
I got an email late evening, Tues Sept 9. He stated my check had "arrived yesterday (Sept
thank you very much" He added that he would not get a chance to get back to the post office to ship the tuner until probably Sat, Sept 13 and then invited me to check into his late night 80 meter group again. I responded, "Why was it taking so long to ship? Why couldn't he ship FedEx or UPS?" I guess it pissed him off big time. He said, "Sorry I couldn't wait. The deal was off. He be returning my check" Just like that! I responded in a conciliatory fashion. "Please reconsider Bob. I didn't mean to irritate you. Take all the time you need." Got an email back from him the next morning - short and sweet. "Posted check this morning". Now waiting for returned check.I think Bob might benefit from an anger management course. What do you think?