So a week later, I called twice a day for three days and he didn't answer the phone. His answering machine says he'll return the call, but he never did.
The next week I got him on the phone and he wouldn't sell me the item I wanted unless I also bought some other things I don't need. It's not like I was trying to get a deal, or free shipping, or something. I just didn't want to feel cheated.
I ended up buying a cheap Chinese knock-off part online.
Was this an assembly perhaps? That happens a lot where a part in an assembly is prone to failure and cannot be purchased outside of the assembly which which is usually 10x the cost of the part itself.
The part was $x. His minimum purchase was $y+shipping. I told him that I was happy to pay $y+shipping for the single part. But he then insisted I also buy completely unrelated items $a and $b, which would have increased the price well beyond $y+shipping.
In my case the instructions were actually technically self contradictory and so I just emailed saying what I wanted as best I could resolve within those peculiar rules, and he of course told me I was not following the rules, so I said fine I'll take whatever you require me to take in order to get $x however you want to do it. But for the record your web site said x rule, and y rule, and I actually tried to do those as you can see.
His next email was to cancel the order, complete with a smarmy "I'm sure you will be able to find a source for those plotter gears somewhere else."
Well I fucking did as a matter of fact. And pens too. New ones, not dried out old stock.
I wasn't trying to get any thing special or get away with anything or buy up too much of a limited supply or anything like that. Just a set of plotter gears and one or two joystick cables and their new replacement joystick pcbs with better buttons. I think I only really needed a single pcb and either no cables or a single cable, but he insisted one sold in pairs and maybe the other limited to one, something. I didn't really care. I was willing to buy whatever and the prices were fine. There was absolutely no reason I can fathom to treat me like a dick.
The only reason I even tried to limit what I ordered was so as not to waste something someone else could have. I wasn't using an Atari joystick on an Atari. I was using it on a TRS-80 model 1 with an add-on that only provides a single joystick port. So I really only needed 1 of everything, and I really didn't even need that. My joystick actually worked fine, I just liked the sound of that upgraded new design PCB, and I was hoping maybe a new cable would be more flexible. I was just trying to patronize a business. I mean, I was trying to be as considerate as possible in every dimension possible, buy extra stuff just to make more of a sale, yet don't waste stuff I'm not actually going to use... I was not doing that much thinking for MY convenience.
Every time I see one of the comments that says they had a great experience, all that means is not only is the guy a dick, he's a capricious unfair dick.