Diggum --
VERY nice cover!!
Just wanted to say a couple of things. I am TOTALLY with you, on the customer service. You sound like a very "principled" person, as am I, and so I can respect that.
That said, I was surprised to hear you had bad experience with Dean. I don't know him, BUT, I have bought three covers from him over the past year, through ebay; all three shipped fast, are of high quality, and I have had zero issues.
SO, the "no email response" thing surprises me. One thing I would say, and I may be TOTALLY off base, is I wonder if he has email issues (he no longer uses the email address you used...messages going to his spam folder, etc.)?
My point is this...I am a seller as well, and just yesterday, I found out that my email address (Hotmail, run by Microsoft) WILL NOT receive emails that are generated through another popular metal detecting forum (Treasure Depot). Any message sent from a Depot member, through that website, never arrives in my inbox. Since learning of the issue, I have now been in contact with both Microsoft and with the Depot's webmaster, and after digging into the issue, it turns out it's a case of the server the Depot runs on currently being "blacklisted" by Microsoft (through no fault of the Depot). Problem is, the person sending the email never gets notified that the email was not sent -- and so, to the buyer, what it appears is that I am not answering their emails! I hate the idea that this may be negatively affecting my attempts to do business properly; I am left to wonder how many potential buyers -- like you -- may have tried to contact me, gotten no response, and thus assumed "poor customer service" on my part.
I guess my point is, there may be other things going on there...because he otherwise has very high ratings as a seller on ebay and I've never heard of anyone doing business with him having any issues. So something seems off...
Anyway just wanted to throw that out there, FWIW. But overall, I am in total agreement with you -- poor customer service means I do not do business with that company.
Steve