Sounds a little iffy to me.
First off, it was bought from a CANADIAN who wanted to use it for XC. Need I say more?
Seriously, I have shipped many bikes and have never had a problem with the seat tube getting messed up.
The bike was originaly purchased buy a guy who rides xc and works in a shop( does not mean squat ), hmmmm, unles he was/is a compleate moron then could he not tell the bike is NOT a xc bike while it was sitting there in the shop?
Personaly, I would never buy a 2 year old freeride bike, especially that has had more then one previous owner. Remember, there are some cool peps out there but most of the time they are trying to close the deal. Perhaps the guy you are dealing with is telling you what he knows but how do you know that the guy he bought it from was not giving him a line of shyte?