“The Camera Professionals” are not actually that professional, nor do they have cameras to sell you. That’s what ZDNet reporter Josh Taylor discovered when he decided to take their Google AdWord bait and buy a camcorder they were offering for nearly $300 less than other stores. He didn’t expect much success, and he was richly rewarded:

While stories like mine are sadly not that uncommon, I’m still absolutely stumped at what kind of scheme The Camera Professionals is trying to pull off. They never tried to upsell me, they never charged my credit card, they simply appeared to have taken an order for an item they seemingly have no intention of trying to fill.

After reading complaints online about the company, Taylor was expecting a call-to-confirm scam that would lead to an aggressive upsell, and a subsequent out of stock notice if he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he simply got nowhere with them. We wonder if it had to do with his manner of payment (Amex).

What’s funniest about the experience is that the company actually paid a small amount of money to take Taylor’s order:

But that’s not all. Since I clicked on a Google sponsored link to visit them in the first place, they actually paid Google for the privilege of taking an order. It wasn’t much – looks to be about a nickel a click for the search term “Vixia HF10? – but it’s still a nickel more than they made off my order.

“The worst shopping experience on the web?” [The ToyBox / ZDNet]

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