rants&venting ! is there rules for selling items here?
I'm not taking either side, just making a statement.
If you raise that big of a stink over $35 and start puting posts like this, it could cause the for sale section to be a thing of the past. I've already seen it happen on another site I'm a member of. The owner of the site did away with their for sale section just because of things like this and didn't want to deal with the headaches any longer.
I'm not saying the seller should get off scott free, but try to handle it between yourselves. If you can't, then suck it up and move on. And before you ask, yes, I have lost a lot more than that on on-line part purchases. Try $450 that took almost a year to recollect on and $225 that I never got back. However, the way to prevent that is to quit buying from private individuals and only buy from reputable companies, but be prepared to pay a lot more for items, or continue buying from individuals knowing that this could happen on any purchase.
I would recommend in the future to ask for pictures prior to purchasing an item so you can make sure that everything is there, use paypal or US Postal Money Orders, and even then it doesn't always work out. Good luck.