There are some things that truly ARE out of the 
dealer's hands. For example, shipping. When a 
dealer insures a cel for shipping, that is a 
contract with the USPS - not with the dealer. If 
the cel is damaged in transit, going to the 
dealer isn't going to help anything. You have to 
go talk to the right people - which would be the 
USPS. I would hope that if the USPS gives you a 
hard time, the dealer would give you information 
that you need (such as the insurance slip), but 
ultimately it the USPS with whom you have to play 
ball.

As for polite questions. . . I haven't run into a 
dealer fluent in English that doesn't (eventually)
write back to me when I have a quesiton about 
something. If a cel is sitting on the site long 
enough to ask a question about it, they usually 
jump at the chance to move out the old. Some 
leeway has to be given for time constraints, of 
course. You might not get a reply the same day. I 
get the feeling there are a lot of online dealers 
who have "day jobs" - their time is taken by the 
things that really keep a roof over their heads. 
And I get the feeling that there are a lot of 
people who (ridiculously) feel ignored if their
e-mail isn't attended to within 24 hours.  o_0;

But as to your comment of dealers playing 
themselves as "mightier than thou" with their 
customers and the customers accepting it because 
they're slavering, wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights
at the mere thought of missing certain cels. . . 
Yes, I think there are ones that do this. I have 
had "reputable" dealers not answer my order 
message to tell me that a cel has already been 
sold (although it was not marked as such). I have 
had "reputable" dealers ask me if I'd like to 
make an offer on cels and, when I do, they don't 
bother to write back but merely list the cel for 
sale on their site and leave me to assume they 
didn't like the offer. Everyone has their horror 
stories of neglect.

However. . .

Dealers that do such things to me get **FAR** 
less of my money than others will. Maybe I'll buy 
from a "snooty" dealer when they turn up a 
stunning cel - but who gets all the money I spend 
on "lesser" cels? Or on cels for which others of 
the same sequence are turning up all around? Not 
the dealers that snubbed me. All that money goes 
to the dealers who treat me nicely - and I often 
spend more money that way than I do on "stunning" 
cels.

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac