Bob,
Wasn't there a thread in which you previously logged this complaint, and in the course of the thread it was revealed that the father of the owner of the auction house recently had died? I honestly don't remember the exact specifics, and forgive me if I'm off a bit (or totally wrong), but I think the timeline of the auction ending and the death was pretty close.
Granted, it's not fair that you had to pay for shipping and others didn't, and this should just be added to the growing list of transgressions by auction houses. But maybe in this case, the owner of the auction house got a little distracted.
Edited to add: Here's the thread I referenced:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=114105