Here's the scoop as I know it....
His name is Al Cole, he lives in Fremont Ohio. He has been on ebay for years. Back when I was far more active in slots I won several of his auctions and I bought things from him on the side too, service was always great, he seemd like a good guy. Due to that he has a large feedback number and a good rating. I beleive he has at least one other EBAY ID but I am not sure what it was, I have not used ebay for at least 3 years. His Wife Barbara also helps him and her email addy sometimes comes into play. He has a website to deal selling resin slot building repops and that is where my recent experience with him came, and a very bad one at that. I provide his website link as information....
http://www.big.als.slots.4t.com/
BAck in Late April I arrange to buy $100 worth of vintage slot car building repops for our little 2 lane sceniced track. I send them a check after we have agreement on buildings and price with shipping, the check is cashed back on May 7th. Sometime in June I start sending emails to inquire the where abouts of my stuff but I get no responses. At that time he was inactive on ebay but with high positive feedback I suspect something is up. After considerable effort I manage to contact Al. I found out my previous email contact was to his wife and she was away from home for months taking care of an ailing relative. Through July and August he returned email and first blamed a heavy backlog of orders, then a PC crash for his delays. In early August he even agreed he owed me and would through in some extra buildings to make it up to me. I tried to be patient and give him the benefit of the doubt citing his past positve record on ebay and his prompt and open communication with me by email this summer. Mid September I began to email again to inquire status and now he fails to respond. I have asked he simply refund my money and be done with all this and I get no response to that. I presume perhaps family matters have evolved to demand a lot of his time, however, he has had 5 months and numerous contacts to make this right so my sympathy has run out.
When I was in touch with him he claimed he does not have a telephone (Impossible to believe) but I do have his address. Bottom line is, if you have something that prevents your ability to do business, you stop doing business until you get your life in order.
I will be taking out a number of ebay ID's soon and doing Buy it now on all his auctions to get his attention since he won't answer emails and if he does not make good on the hundred bucks or the goods soon, he will find me continuing to hose up his auctions. I have a business trip his way in a couple months and he may find me at his door step as well. Yes I am pissed, but he has dragged this out, communicated in the past and failed to deliver, now he feels he can blow it off....wrong, he can refund my money or deal with me on my terms.