Damn, scammed!

Well, it's happened again- it doesn't happen often, but I was drawn in by low price and good looking website.  I ordered a large number (40) of Primus fuel cans from " Gear For Camping " in Pensacola, Fl.  My first twist in the gut was the charging of my Visa card instantly.  Sure, some retailers do that, but many charge when the item ships- a nice arrangement, the you paying part when they are fulfilling their obligation.  But, of course, many transactions you pay up front and wait.  Well, wait you will with this retailer.  Little information followed, eventually a packaged arrived a good while later, 8 days, 10 days, I don't know.  It appeared pretty small for 10 fuel cans, 1.5 liters each- Oh, only 4 shipped. Hmm. It is 2009, it's fairly easy to inform your customers about those details.  My requests for expected delivery of the balance of my order was met w/ terse, anonymous emails.  My requests to cancel the orders ("100% satisfaction guaranteed!") was met with- "you can't cancel, we ordered from supplier for your orders, should be shipping soon."  Red flag!  But, hey, small businesses can't keep everything in stock.  Not the way I'd treat customers, but... So it's been gnawing away at me for some time, I keep thinking maybe today they will ship. 
This morning I happened to see a short feature on a morning news/ talk show about a security consultant creating a false website for very low prices on popular cellphones, how it took a few minutes to mock it up, paid Google a bit for sponsored listing, and started reeling in lots of visa card numbers, etc.  His site then stated the purpose of it, that you haven't been scammed, but this is how easy it is. 
So, I (finally) started researching Gear For Camping.  Survey says.... not good.  All reviews @ http://www.resellerratings.com/ are identical to mine, and POOR.  Oops!  A quick call to Visa got my problems ironed out.  Yes, I certainly should have done my research prior to the order, but it's been a very busy few months.  This experience pales in comparison to my dealings with Chase Bank, but that's another story.  I have had so many great transactions with other suppliers I think I let my guard down.
In good news my Tool Tube supplier let me know my custom production run of Mega tubes is enroute, should be arriving soon!  And, custom tool rolls should be on the way soon, high quality, very well built, US made.
Oh, I asked the Visa rep how to best avoid future mistakes like mine-  She said Google the company- anything negative about them will pop up, someone will blog about it.  It wasn't a direct order to me, but if it helps somebody else, it's worth it!  Devon