Scammed buying online

I can talk from personal experience when I say purchasing goods online can be very tricky.
To be perfectly frank it has made me avoid buying online unless there is no other alternative.
Sellers who rip off their customers not only damage their own business reputation; they ruin the efforts of honest marketing companies that offer a genuine product or service.
Scammers feel comfortable prowling around the internet because they can work anonymously, secure in the fact they can assume and discard identities at the drop of a hat.
Scammers remind me of viruses. They vary in magnitude like viruses in the way that they can be mildly irritating or heartbreakingly unconscionable.
Some just use false or misleading advertising to obtain qualified email addresses so they can compile lists of prospects to send related products to.
There is nothing wrong with that in theory but, as people are obsessed with making easy money, unwitting recipients of misleading email need to be protected from unscrupulous merchants.
Examples of scammers who operate in this way are:
Sham Investment advisers who convince prospects to buy worthless stocks, and Nigerian letter frauds.
Most of us are well acquainted with these obvious attempts to part us from our cash, but then there are the more subtle irritating scams that you and I could fall for.

The shoddy service businesses are doing tremendous damage in the way they operate.

Two instances have recently surfaced where I have been duped. These are mild compared to the big ones, but whenever the act of buying something online causes me to spend more money that I thought I would need to, or causes me to disrupt my schedule unexpectedly, then I classify these as scams.

The first instance was when I downloaded a certain media player and then decided I would pay the extra money and buy the pro version.
I went through the credit card process and received a serial number for the pro media player I downloaded, only to find that I had been given the wrong serial number.
After waiting three days for the help people to answer my email, I placed a long distance phone call to The States from Australia, and after twenty minutes on hold was given a correct number.
Recently I attempted to book a hotel on an island resort in Thailand. I made the booking online through an agent who confirmed my booking, processed my credit card and emailed me to tell me that would receive a confirmation voucher to show to the hotel.
As the time got nearer to my holiday, I had not yet received my confirmation so I emailed my agent asking for it.
I received no reply.
Fortunately, I had a friend in Bangkok who rang the agent on my behalf and found out the reason. What had happened was the agent had admitted that there were no vacancies at the hotel for the period I had booked for.
The agent had planned to inform me of this at the last minute and offer me another lower standard hotel for the amount that had already been debited to my account.
After threatening to take the matter further, I was given a refund.
When these things happen, it really makes you think twice about making purchases on the internet.