Ok. So new plan. I'm going with aliexpress. I have a seller that will charge $213/pair for an order of 5 or more. For one pair it's $250. It takes one day to process payment and ten days to ship, so we're looking at two weeks to have them.
Stepping back a bit, these shoes are easily worth this. Would I have liked to have gotten them for $99? Heck yeah, but life moves on.
Also, aliexpress uses an escrow system that prevents the seller from getting your money until the buyer has confirmed satisfactory delivery of the goods.
Soooo... are there 4 folks that have either cancelled a previous order or not ordered yet that would like to speak up for one of the 4 extra pairs for $213 + actual shipping costs to forward them to you? I would not take any payment until I have them in hand and ready to forward them on. I would just want to know that I won't be stuck with the 4 other pairs. Also, I've received assurances that they will test each shoe to make sure there are no dead LEDs.
I'll wait until tomorrow night to order. If 4 folks haven't spoken up by then I'll just order 1 pair for myself for $250.
I can stomach paying a little more for the shoes. I just can't stomach paying more to the same website I initially ordered from that decided to play games, lying week after week about the delivery date and final price.