Yep, that sounds about right.

In the UK last year there was a massive hoohah about all of this with sellers who did not deliver on expensive concert tickets. Predictably the tickets never arrived and by the time the customer asked for their money back the seller had closed all their bank accounts and disappeared with the cash. What did the card companies and paypal do? Nowt.

The best thing to do is just to be careful.

Like I said before John's a nice guy, seems genuine to me and is probably having major problems. Just be glad his site is still in existance giving you a glimmer of hope.