ebay idiots

I had an interesting episode recently. I was interested in an item that a surplus trader had, in fact he had 3 of them. The items were being offered as Buy It Now with free shipping in the US. I asked what he would charge to ship to the UK, the response was $30 *each* on top of the Buy It Now price which obviously must have already included an allowance for shipping, with no apparent option even to combine the shipping. When I said that the total was too much for me he invited me to suggest what I was prepared to pay. I told him, also saying that I suspected he would find my offer a bit low, but I thought it might be a point at which to start a negotiation. He responded with insults. Needless to say I will be avoiding that trader in the future. Rob