[darrin]

my concern here is that the seller basically stuck YOU with the fedex insurance denial. Part was broken before it got to you and you ended up eating the return shipping cost.

Had an almost identical situation occur with Pelican (another seller that "makes a living selling parts" and has "quite a few happy customers") earlier this year -- they shipped me some windshield seal trim that got bent up in transit. However, in contrast to your situation, when I reported it to Pelican, they immediately shipped me replacement parts, sent me a prepaid return shipping sticker and my only "loss" was the few days extra time (and an extra trip to fedex). Pelican handled this situation well, but really no differently from how I'd expect other good sellers to act. Were pelican to have insisted that I pay return shipping for a part that the carrier determined was broken because the seller had "not adequately packaged [it] for safe transportation”and (especially if that liability was over 25% of my purchase price), I'd be PISSED and would likely call Pelican out for this here. FWIW