A thief is a thief.
Again, where's the knife or the money?
Russ, the simple fact is that this is exactly akin to your situation with Newt Livesay, excepting Livesay blew sunshine up your nether regions without stating that you were a lying punk and that he was going to try and have customs snag your knife by labeling it as such.
Prior to my excommunication from the "secret treehouse," I recall the thread regarding to this matter in question going to the "troll hole" - a fair demonstration of the matter's concern to all involved at the Usual Suspect Network by the ownership and administration, or really the lack thereof, when a "respected member" acts like this. Dan wa taking a LOT of hits for his concern that his knife and his money were stuck in the middle of the Nevada desert with no return on the horizon. I seem to recall the user-agreements at any of these imaginary communities being pretty dead-set against promoting/ condoning/ supporting illegal activities. Theft is still illegal even in Vegas - the casino has to win your house fair and square. This is the part about the "usn bashing" that is going on here some folks don't care for, but somewhere it's gotta be said. Cross-forum wars or other such nonsense be damned, if the "management" supports this guy and you support the "management," do the math.
Ban him, guys, for what good it will do, but Dan, you ought to consider filing fraud/ theft charges - this is interstate commerce and international commerce. I have NO idea about the international enforcement, but I am betting the governing/ regulating body regarding shipping will not be pleased about this in the USA.
So who's still defending this guy? Who's defending the defenders? And why?
It's not a dispute between a vendor and a customer, if the guy has your money and your property, has produced no example of actual work being performed (has he?) and then claims addl expenses, demands more money, still no results, if it's property we are talking about theft or at least extortion.
Maestro - sorry to hit you from this side, you were hoping for something positive, but I think that is up to Kyle now. All he's gotta do is produce a digital photo to start, or just ship the damned thing back and NOT do something really stupid like draw the customs-guy's attention to it claiming it is a purchase and an expensive one at that. No, he just needs to send it back marked with the equivalent of "repair completed/ returning to owner."
Tell ya what, I retract my statement of THIEF when the knife gets back to the owner, deal?