I know the feeling… I live in The Netherlands and it’s similar. All fees are piling up these days, and become more expensive with every passing day… You have the price of the item (duh), but then also shipping fees, eBay fees, PayPal fees, currency conversion PayPal fees, and depending on the price of the package import fees. Oh, and in addition loads of sellers aren’t shipping worldwide, so then we’ll have even additional middleman fees (including shipping from the seller to the middleman).
It’s actually pretty sad when you say it all out loud (or should I say type) like this, haha. 
But to answer the question of the topic: no, I haven’t dealt with that guy. I do know that some sellers/buyers from both Germany and France prefer bank transfer over PayPal in some cases, though. Although they also prefer domestic shipping (the sellers) usually, so I would have assumed a buyer from Germany trying to buy something from Australia would just use PayPal…
Greetz,
Quuador