No amount of 'Colombian Gold' is going to give you a 'wonderful life'. What's this Edmund , a new career in diplomacy ?
Well, clearly if your dealer is supplying backs by the dozen to the Getty Museum etc (the colombian equivalent is delivering "pizza" to Goldmann Sachs, I guess) you will have a very bad life as a private customer with him, unless you pay cash for lost stock and he can use the bills for backhanders to the big buyers.
If on the other hand the poor bastard is stuck serving billionaires who roll up in a Ferrari and only pay $40K or so a pop, and pros who buy used backs or lenses, then you will have much more traction with this commercially indentured serf; he will be happy to keep you on the rolls and sell you a battery here, a lens there and a used back tomorrow - it may not send the kid to Yale, but it'll pay the day's lease.
I'm sorry to be cynical, but I live in a latin country (France) and also there has been a big transition in the business model for these dealers, they have got used to extracting their profit up front in a huge chunk, like a python swallowing its prey, and in the case of institutional purchasers the revenue is often a product of entitlement by geography rather than the result of any genuine competence at making the customer happy.
To get back to topic, if the dealer is bad, dump him; a new dealer can probably solve this problem for free out of used stock, and sell you a couple of batteries and a cable release at list price within the year to make up revenue. Fighting idiots who have been appointed regional barons/tax collectors by Phase One is just dumb.
Edmund