Spent the past day with the doctor and getting 
bloodwork done, and you sort of get a new 
perspective on what's important and what's not.

But I now that I found that things got way out of 
hand with my previous thread, and now that Nick 
decided to reveal himself, I would just like to 
try to smooth things over (although no one should 
worry about the two of us continuing business any 
time soon) and just give everyone a chance to 
move on.

Although I did see it coming a mile away, it 
amazes me how quickly people changed their 
attitudes once they learned who the dealer in 
question actually was.  For as many people eager 
to punish Nick severely (notice that I was never 
one of them), there were an equal number of 
people ready to support him without even 
questioning either of our stories.  I knew it was 
going to happen; I even warned everyone what 
would happen; but it's pretty amazing to see, 
nonetheless.

I'm perfectly fine with Nick telling his side of 
the story; I'll now also fill in the rest (now 
that he wants everything to be open).  It's true; 
he and I have quibbled over many issues (from 
minor to major) in the distant past, and many 
times it was because I questioned a lot of things 
and sometimes just plain misunderstood the 
situation.  (Still, I always admitted my errors 
and apologized for them.)  But there also have 
been times when he was wrong too, and it took 
some wrangling to get him to admit so in those 
cases.  Needless to say, it's been rough on both 
of us.

But, the bottom line is this:  despite any 
headaches I may have caused him, Nick could never 
penalize me because he never had a single just 
cause to do so.  3-4 times he threatened to drop 
me, which led to the equal number of times I had 
to convince him why he had not right to do so (or 
in his words, I "begged"--that language is fine 
with me too).  I always paid my accounts on time 
and I never behaved in any way that was unethical 
or malicious.  I could have been mightily 
critical of the service at times, but I never 
held anything personal against him.  I probably 
wouldn't win any award for best customer, but I 
was always responsible and always frank & honest 
(probably both to our detriment).

(So, no, I don't think Nick was greedy; I think 
he's been trying to do the right thing as much as 
he could before this incident.)

I also am not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit 
weak-minded.  For all the grief that Nick may 
have taken from me, Nick easily returned the 
favor by trying to pull his service all those 
times and constantly questioning my motives in 
return.  In the end, though, this exchange 
probably took a greater toll on me.  He merely 
viewed me as a troublesome (BUT reliable) 
customer.  On the other hand, though, I really 
absorbed his critcism of me, which led to my self-
doubts and lack of willpower later on.

I am honest when I say that I did (and still do, 
to a certain degree) respect him... based upon 
not only his reputation but ALSO the previous 3 
years I have dealt with him before (without any 
problems, I can frankly mention).  And when this 
issue with the insurance claim came up, I had 
little desire left to put up another fight with 
him.  So I (and it seems to both of our 
detriment) allowed him to influence me into 
thinking that I was being the one who might have 
been too unreasonable.  And thus I allowed him to 
prolong the situation when it probably could have 
been resolved much sooner and with little fuss.

Still, in the back of my mind, I knew that 
something... just something... was inherently 
wrong with this particular situation and wouldn't 
go away.  Yes, I e-mailed Nick several ZIP files 
full of photos of the damaged items.  But he only 
received 1-2 (so he only saw the first batch of 
damaged items).  Since then, however, that's all 
that he has based his conclusions on, which is 
unfortunate.

I offered to resend the other photos BUT he said 
that he saw enough to agree that the contents 
were damaged (to which degree, though, still 
debatable in his mind).  I also offered to ship 
the damaged items BACK to him but he dismissed my 
claims as minor.  I then asked for his 
documentation so that I could file the claim on 
my own and he told me that he's filed the claims 
in the past.  And so, I waited a month, thinking 
he would file the claim with the evidence he 
already had in his hand.

When that didn't happen, I asked Nick again for 
documentation.  He finally sent me a scan of the 
insurance slip, and I then learned that package 
was sorely underinsured.  I asked Nick about the 
insurance slip and he simply said the postal 
clerk made a mistake (but did not explain why he 
missed such a huge error or what he would do in 
case an insurance claim needed to be made).

By this time, I was pretty ill and exhausted and 
not willing to push the matter further.  So I 
gathered up all the documentation I could find 
and with some help from a friend filed a claim 
with the post office.  I spoke with the postal 
inspector, who examined the items in person (and 
saw what my digital camera probably couldn't show 
to Nick), confirmed the damage, agreed that my 
claim was a valid one, and recommended forwarding 
the claim to St. Louis as soon as possible.

(I don't want to argue about the level of damage 
like Nick has, but I think that a positive 
examination by a postal inspector should make 
that kind of debate pointless anyway.)