RE: Did I pull a dumb one.......
You are not on your own It took 4 months for the British postal service to pay out on an insured parcel that they had destoyed. It was only because I would not give up that they paid out. On another occasion I sent two top end rx's back under warranty to a well known manufacturer. They both had intermittent lockouts while doing set up in the model. I made the mistake of discussing this with them by phone and then sending them back for replacement uninsured. You've guessed it, they never arrived, scratch £200. I never bought any more of their equipment and switched to another manufacturer. Ron