Financial fraud plain and simple.
So I needed (4) of a specific exit light for a project. I emailed their sales team and asked if they were available. They said yes. I ordered the (4) lights online and paid $800 for them. Got confirmation that they were ordered and would be delivered within 7 days. Two hours later I get an email that they were not in stock and my order was canceled. I called them. They said the third party vendor it turns out did not have them. I asked them to check the vendor for stock of an alternate fixture that was nearly identical to the first fixture. He did and confirmed that they had those four fixtures in stock. I ordered them and paid another $700. That was a Friday afternoon and my delivery of those fixtures was critical to my project. The following Monday afternoon, I get another email. My order was canceled again, and the third party vendor did not have those fixtures either. I called the sales team again. They apologized and said my credit card would be reimbursed within the next TEN DAYS. So they use my $1500 for the next ten days and I get zilch, and three days of run around. In my book that is fraud. #1 you can reimburse a credit card in max three days, one day if they hadn't batched the transactions yet. I'm wondering how many other people have they done this to, and to what dollar amount. If you're going to be in this business of being a go between supplier with NO ACTUAL inventory in your warehouses, then you better have a fool proof method of checking your suppliers stock BEFORE you make any sales!! There should be a financial penalty for actually taking the customers money and encumbering their credit, when you actually DO NOT HAVE that item available to you to actually sell!!