Long time lurker here and fan of the eevblog videos... finally decided to create an account.
I was planning to buy a Hakko Fx-888 but couldn't find 230v ones on eBay, so I went looking for a distributor close to me, ideally in this country where i live, Romania.
So it turns out there is one company, gave them a call and basically they said they only deal with companies but they can make an exception. Initially, the price was 140 euro + vat, which is 24% here, so 174 euro in total, plus about 6 euro in shipping costs. For reference, 174 euro is 226 dollars.
I replied to their email saying I felt the price was rather high and they were nice enough to lower the price to 119 euro +vat, or around 192 dollars.
So you can see how it would suck for some, as I can get one from US for 99$ + 53$ shipping and pay about 15$ for a replacement transformer. I would probably have to pay the VAT at customs but generally the people employed there are not that strict with packages for regular people.
In the end, I bought a Hakko 936 off eBay for 79 dollars and free shipping, from an Israel seller.