Some people should never go the entrepreneur route. Meet David Free, the man behind QMS, a company that sells and sometimes even ships an aluminum mousepad called the MacPadd. When the guys at TomsHardware.com started asking why theirs hadn't arrived, they discovered that Free does business his own way. Or sometimes not at all:

Free then exclaimed, "Get out of my f***ing life!" And hung up on us. By now it was becoming clear to us that we weren't going to receive the product we paid for.

Tuan Nguyen at Tom's Hardware ordered a MacPadd to review it on October 23rd. He subsequently tried repeatedly to contact MacPadd or QMS to inquire about the order, but he was ignored.

After going through the confirmation process and payment (done through PayPal), we received an automated response. The website also indicates that the product should ship to the US within "3 to 7 business days."

During the next 7 days following the initial order date, we contacted the vendor several times with no success. The business number constantly goes to a voicemail. An attempt to call the vendor on the 30th of October did not yield any success either. Leaving a voicemail to have a rep respond went unheard.

We never received a shipment confirmation, tracking email notification, or any other type of email to indicate that the product would be delayed, was unavailable, or was on back order.

Suffice to say, we were getting a bit worried.

After looking through the PayPal transaction record, we were able to find another business contact number listed by PayPal for QMS Inc. We called that several times. No answer either.

The only way Nguyen managed to get the owner to acknowledge him was by opening a dispute with through PayPal. But even that didn't resolve things, with Free first breaking promises to send a tracking number, then sending one that turned out to be for another customer's order, then eventually threatening to sue Nguyen and/or Tom's Hardware.

It gets crazier from there, and includes accusations of mental illness, vague threats, and evidence that others have complained about being ripped off by MacPadd.com. Eventually PayPal resolved the dispute in favor of Tom's Hardware and that was that. Well, except for the follow-up article Nguyen wrote to warn others away from the MacPadd, which drew more rants from Free, who signed up as a commenter on the tomshardware.com site to leave personal attacks.

When you buy something from an untested, small-time online vendor, always do a search for complaints first, both on Google and with the Better Business Bureau. Hopefully the experience that Tom's Hardware had with MacPadd.com will stick around online for a long time to warn future shoppers.

"Company to Avoid: QMS Inc./MacPadd.com" [Tom's Hardware]