So sorry to hear how this went. Hope it does not turn you off to pinball and pinside. Mostly great people here.

I did buy a pin from Cory last year and thought he was fine to deal with. In my opinion, the pin I got was described fairly, and Cory worked with me holding the pin for me pick up. I might be lucky since I picked it up in person, but I had no problem. So sorry to hear that someone else had such a terrible experience.

If you are this concerned about personal privacy, you should probably not be posting on a publicly viewable internet forum. Most of us have our location listed, and many (including me) use our real initials and/or name in our username. It would be simple to figure out who most pinsiders are from their voluntarily listed information and posts. Robin asks that we do not post specific personal information about others. That's great. But most of us have given enough information willingly that it's just a matter of putting it together. Before I contacted Cory about the pin that I bought from him, a little Google activity told me exactly who he was, including his profession and place of work. Granted, that was before the negative stuff came up, and that might have changed my mind.
If anyone really wants to know who I am in real life, I'll tell them. And they can come by and play some pinball.