Hi kent - no, please don't stop posting deals - we love to hear about them. But if we criticize the deals, don't take it personally - we're just criticizing the seller, not you.
I think it's kind of funny how that guy allows for multiple cases to be included in one shipping quote. That's usually where you can turn an ok deal into a good deal, like you got. You see, Ebay lets you sell multiple items in one auction and then you can have the shipping calculator figure out shipping as if it's all one package. But I've seen a few ebay sellers get burned by that - like the guy who had 10 cases of for sale - I put in quantity 4 and got a great shipping quote - but he wasn't intending to ship four cases all taped together - he was going to send them individually. So instead of one shipment of 4 cases for $40, like the calculator quoted, he'd have to pay 4 cases @ $15-$20 each. After he figured that out, he changed the shipping to a per case deal.
So yeah, I think it's real funny that the guy from your auction is trying to rip you off by tagging on an unseen $9 to the shipping quote - but then he's probably losing money on shipping.
And before anyone mentions it, yes...I know you *can* tape two or three cases together and ship them...but I haven't run across a lot of ebay sellers willing to do this.
Just FYI...from my experience, the best shipping method I've seen for MREs is to tape two or three cases together and ship them via FedEx Ground.
If you run into a seller who's trying to inflate shipping like this and you want to watch them squirm, tell him you have your own FedEx account and you'll send him the labels for shipping and pay for all the shipping on your end if he'll just tape them together. If he's trying to sweeten his pot with shipping, he'll try to weasle out of it.