Sorry to hear of your troubles, everybody's different with sales and things.

I just bought a large, heavy item from a guy in CA, it was $185 for the item and $140 for shipping it. He boxed it all up and shipped it to me, before I paid him! I didn't even have his address until the boxes arrived. The man didn't know me from a bag of assholes, he sure didn't need to do that. But by God, I had the cash on the way to him via FedEx before I even opened the boxes.