Never bought from UE, nor have I owned UE. Never heard of billytrucks until today. Based on what I have seen over 7 years with Robin on multiple forums, he is no saint by far. From a completely anlaytical standpoint on ebay I find this interesting:
Billytrucks has over 2600 feedback with a 99.9% feedback rating.
UE has a 119 feedback with a 94.4% feedback rating.
The only negative feedback left for billytrucks is from a person who has a poor rating himself while the negatives for UE are from people with 100% feedback rating.
That doesn't really stand in UE's favor either. I posted on the UE forum and was promptly banned. Funny Robin also said he didn't believe for a minute I managed a machine shop as part of my job from 03-08. I have a lot of experience with parts/complexity/pricing and know for fact UE's prices were always ridculously high. My shop made parts way more complex that even the VBS bulks.
Please also understand that my machine shop's function was to support a company that made gaskets by supplying parts for machines we used that we deisgned and built in house. My machine shop supervision was a part of my overall duties with the company. In the plant I worked for we had over 75 CNC machines. A 4400 watt laser and a 2600 watt laser, multi axis mills, and around 25 manual lathes and mills. Many of our CNC machines were designed, built, and programmed in house. Here is the website for the company I worked for:
http://www.flexitallic.com/
I could care less about billytrucks and if he is selling fake parts then he should be punished appropriately. However, Robin isn't exactly "clean" in my opinion either.
I posted this here because some people on the UE forum post here as well and know who I am.