Reader Scott has had a mess of trouble with online retailer Procura.com. He’s done a great job detailing the problems he’s had, so have a look for yourself, including more after the jump.

I was looking for a Sirius S50 Home Docking kit.
Every online retailer (and several local stores) I checked did not have any in stock.
Then I found Procura.com, a Yahoo! Shopping merchant.
Their site said they have 2 in stock, ready to ship.
I ordered one.

The next day, they sent me an email saying it was on back order, and they’d ship it when it’s back in stock.
In that email, they gave me an email address to write to if I wanted to cancel.
I wrote to that address, cancelling my order.
My email immediately bounced back; the address was no good.
I went to their site ( procura.com), and after digging around, I found a different “cancellation” email address, so I wrote to that one, but not before re-checking to see if they updated the stock status.
They did not; it still said 2 in-stock.
So I sent my new cancellation email to the new email address.
It, too, bounced back, as this was yet another bad email address.

I replied to the original confirmation email, telling them that I want to cancel, telling them that they give 2 bad email addresses, and telling them that they still list the item as in stock.
Surprisingly, that one didn’t bounce.
The next day, they responded, saying they’d cancel my order, and oddly enough, the response was from a Gmail account…

The next day, I got an “order status update” email, telling me the item is still on back order, but they’d ship my order when the item is in.
Grrrrrrr…..
I wrote back, only this time, I used the Gmail address they sent from earlier.
No response.

I went back to their site & checked the status; yep, you guessed it: 2 S50 Home Kits in-stock & ready to ship, they claim.

The next day (today), I got an email from Procura.com , but no, it wasn’t a re-confirmation of my re-cancellation, it was another “order status update,” telling me it’s still on back order, but will ship when it’s in….

Now I know this is the exact reverse order one should follow, but I went to the Yahoo! Merchant Rating page to see what others had said about Procura.com; had I gone there first, I would have seen that this is a pattern with Procura.com, dating back over 16 months of reviews.
Many people experienced the same issues I’ve been dealing with from Procura.com.
Also, they suspiciously have absolutely no contact information listed on their Yahoo! Merchant Information page…

Having not again heard from Procura.com, I contacted Yahoo! Shopping to register my complaint.
I use a separate debit card solely for online purchases (one that I only replenish with just enough to cover the cost of a purchase, and only just prior to placing an order), so I made sure I don’t have funds available, should Procura.com try to scam me out of my hard-earned money, but this sort of thing just pisses me off.

A closer look at Procura.com’s site showed some other “suspicious” statements & practices:
• on their home page (and every other Procura.com page), they state they have a 5-star Yahoo! Merchant rating.
They do not.

• In order to check the stock of an item, you click the “check stock” button, but that button also activates their “buy” button, placing the item in your cart.

•You aren’t allowed to find out how much your shipping charge will be until you enter your name, address, and credit card numbers. Why do they do that?
Because their shipping charges are truly outrageous!
I was willing to pay a higher shipping charge for the S50 Home kit because they were the only ones who had it in stock (or so I was lead to believe).
•As stated previously, they use multiple email addresses, listing inactive addresses as the “cancellation” contacts.
•And the best one of all is that they STILL show the S50 Home Kit as being in-stock & ready to ship.
Amazing…

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.