Well since it appears that the two parties involved have reached some kind of an agreement there really is no point in speculating exactly who said what or who did what any longer.
All we can do is try to learn from their mistakes so let's go over who did what wrong. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with judging on a person's character... it's just plain common sense:
EBFD screwed up by:
- Sending the product off before payment was received.
- Sending the product using the incorrect shipping method - and not doing the proper research before things ended up getting to this point.
- Sending the product off incomplete.
- Bringing the matter to a public forum before even giving a reasonable amount of time for things to get settled.
STEVE screwed up by:
- Letting his anger get the best of him and saying things that probably shouldn't have been said.
- Implying that he was not going to pay for the goods because of the mix-up.
- Assuming everything would work out and paying outrageous overnight charges from Newegg (I mean come on.. that's such a waste of money IMO - but that's my opinion to make).
- Letting his PM mailbox get full. I don't know the details behind this so it's mostly speculation but come on now!
Reading this thread reminded me of the Air Emergency show where it shows that one pilot screwed this up and another screwed that up and then the maintenance guys screwed this up and then the flight attendant screwed that up. It's like there were so many mistakes made by so many people that disaster was imminent! And the more that was posted about it, the deeper things got!
Next time when you're selling/buying something sight unseen online try applying some common sense tactics. DO YOUR RESEARCH. Require payment before you ship (Paypal is a great resource for things such as this). Don't assume the packages will get there when they are supposed to. Don't expect the seller to be responsible for things if they aren't. If in doubt ASK QUESTIONS!
Learn from these mistakes people and don't let this sort of thing happen again.