Okay, this situation has kind of dragged itself 
out over almost a year, because the process 
involved was long in several different ways.

May of last year ( 2003 ), I ordered some cels 
from a very well-known dealer, whom I have done 
transactions with many times before.  I sent a 
Postal Money Order, which is how I normally send 
payment to this particular dealer.  Anyway, more 
than a month passed and no package.  So I 
emailed asking if he had received payment, and 
he said payment had never come.  Thinking the 
money order must have gotten lost, I searched 
around for the money order receipt stub used  
for tracking and claims.  I *always* keep these 
stubs.  However, hard as I looked, I could not 
find it.  There was no stub for this money order 
I had mailed in my little zipper pouch where I 
keep all money order stubs.  As I had been 
extremely busy with school and 2 jobs at the 
time of the supposed mailing of this money order 
and I had no proof that it ever was mailed, I 
began to think that maybe it had completely 
slipped my mind and I had never actually mailed 
off the money order and only thought I had.

Completely embarassed, I paid the dealer 
immediately through Paypal.  Transaction 
complete, I received my items.

Now, I just moved out of my home in January, and 
while packing up everything into boxes, I came 
across a lone money order stub.  To my surprise, 
it was for the exact amount of money that I had 
owed for that cel order, and the stub was dated 
only a few days after the original email invoice 
for the cels that I got from the dealer.  So I 
*had* sent a money order.  Well, I assumed it 
got lost in the mail.

I filed a "lost money order" claim through the 
post office and have been waiting to hear 
something back on it.  Just yesterday I got a 
letter in the mail from the main offices and it 
provided a photocopy of the money order, signed 
and cashed by the dealer.

I am in no way accusing the Dealer of lying to 
get me to send extra payment.  I have done many 
transactions with him before for much larger 
amounts and have never had a problem.  I'm sure 
he gets tons of money orders in the mail every 
day for cel orders, and somewhere he didn't 
correctly log/track that I had paid off my order.

In all honesty I don't want the trouble of 
getting the money back, but I would like to get 
credit towards a future cel purchase for the 
double amount that I paid.  Do you think this is 
too much for me to ask of the dealer almost a 
year after the original order?  How should I go 
about approaching him of his mistake?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!!!