Rob is a stand up guy. I bought 6 machines from him over the years. There are always in the shape described. He even came by and rebuilt a flipper with me the other day.

I'm guessing the garbled DMD really freaked the OP out. It's just a ribbon cable issue. These are the easy fixes you want.

People would rather not play retail price, but retail gets you the peace of mind with a return in this case.

You would not get a return in a private sale most likely. I still don't understand why people don't contact the person they bought it from first. Makes no sense.

No way he was trying to pull a fast one on you. Has too much at stake with reputation, etc. Plus, who wants to have to ship a game back? Shipping either way is a pain in the ass.

Glad it's all being worked out.

^^^ This. You don't trash until you are unhappy with the response from the company. Businesses need to make a profit to survive. Everything costs money and you pay a premium for satisfaction. Anyone else, you'd NEVER get any $$$ back. EVER.