macdaddy's Journal: Doing your homework on online merchants?

I have bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods on the 'Net over the years. I mean that literally. If you include the auctions I've won then that number would easily double. I've been extremely fortunate to have a very limited number of bad online transactions. I've also been lucky enough to not have an problems (that I know of) with identity theft. I credit my good fortune to picking merchants that I've either heard good things about or got the warm and fuzzies after visiting their site or doing research on them. Still, I've had my problems. I now always double check new merchants with a review site called ResellerRatings.com. I get to hear from other consumers on their experiences (good or bad) with that merchant. It has saved my ass numerous times. I've found that the cheapest place is usually not the best place to make your purchase. Paying a few bucks extra to buy from NewEgg or GoogleGear is worth it. The service before and after the sale is worth it alone. You might end up paying $1-15 more for something but it's worth it IMHO. One time when I didn't check resellerratings.com is one time I definitely got burnt. I priced ultra/160 73GB hard drives a year or so ago. One vendor had a significantly lower price and had a pretty good site. That merchant was Computer Giants. I recommended to my employer that we buy that hard drive through CG. Big mistake. The drive was faulty from the start and went KIA within a day or so of being powered up. Needless to say CG was less than helpful with a RMA. They wanted us to pay for the return shipping AND for CG to test the drive to determine if it was in fact faulty AT THEIR LEISURE. The drive was destined for a server and a project that depended on it. Paying more money for a DOA drive was certainly not reasonable. We were a state agency for Pete's sake and they sold us a faulty product. In the end Maxtor's excellent support bailed us out. They replaced the drive with a brand new one that worked flawlessly. That was one of only a few times I didn't research an online merchant before doing business with them. Before sinking your hard-earned cash into a ubber-special deal from a merchant you've never heard of before, I highly recommend you do a few minutes worth of research into their past. It could save you a lot of potential grief.