He's lying or he's incompetent. I send multiple PIFs to the States regularly and it usually costs me about $23 for 2 to 3 LPs.
I assume either he can't find the record (ie lost or sold or in worse condition than expected etc) or there really is some sort of shipping issue. Calling them out on it or insisting would probably go nowhere and i don't even really think there's ill-intent. Reddit seller, so it's a toss up on if there's something he doesn't want to say or doesn't know to do or whatever.
It's one of a handful of Zorn records I would consider 'must have' for my personal collection (dreamers O'o, naked city, big gundown, spillane) so I'm just going to keep looking for it.