I've had very good experiences purchasing items from forum members who have demonstrated exceptional integrity and taken great care in packaging items for shipment. Unfortunately, my experience with the purchase of the throttlemeister bar ends from Gilf Hunter is an exception ...
The throttlemeister bar ends were received in the original box, which was undamaged externally. When I opened the box, I was astounded to find that all the parts were loose in the box without any individual packaging or wrapping. Perhaps the bar ends were in the promised great condition when they were shipped but they were scratched and the black paint was rubbed upon receipt (metal on metal over several hundred miles in the post will always yield these results). I contacted Gild Hunter and he will not accept any responsibility for the condition of the bar ends. He suggested, amid a variety of other things, that: I contact USPS about the damage, use a sharpie to blacken the scratched areas; and, that I am blowing this out of proportion.
I advised Gilf Hunter that I would be sharing my experience with other forum members, after I thanked him for helping me re-learn the buyer beware rule. The aforementioned are the facts ... I leave it to others to characterize what occurred.