KHL, very sorry to hear of the stress and disappointment. I hope everything works out in the end, and you eventually end up with a great Centaur keeper. You deserve the best.

Having said that -- I want to underline a few key points you made:

Thank you for sharing about this experience with the community to reinforce a few principles that pinsiders should consider for their next long-distance purchase.

My takeaways would be:

* actively look for red flags; when you lust for a new game overrides common sense, step back, take a deep breath and get your control back
* trust your instincts; where there's smoke...
* pressure is a red flag; pinsiders are generally not in a hurry to sell (as in "today" hurry)
* ask for 25+ great closeup photos; anyone not willing to invest 10 minutes to sell a game, where I'm risking $500 in transport costs, isn't worth my time, that's a person with zero empathy. red flag.

-mof