wondering if an online business is a scam?

[greenfrogthing77]

purchased an item from a website on Sept 19 and received an emailed on Sept 21 saying that the product had been shipped and was given a UPS tracking number. Even though my credit card has been charged, the tracking number has never worked and when I contacted UPS (twice) they told me that the business I bought the product requested that all shipping information be handled by them and that UPS was not to give any information out. Now it's Sept 27, I have no product and a tracking number that doesn't work and I've sent 3 emails, one Facebook message, and one Twitter message to this "business" and I have received no response from them.

I'm wondering what I should do. If by the time I need to pay my credit card comes with no item I will dispute the charge, but I'm not sure if I can bring the Better Business Bureau into this or if there is another group that would better handle it. I'm personally upset at all of this, and at the same time I don't want anyone else to go through this.
http://www.bensoutlet.com/

and here's a ratings site that I found after the fact and many other people have had similar or the same issue...

http://www.resellerratings.com/search/ben's%20outlet

[almedin]

Whats the websites name? Hopefully you did not buy anything worth alot and that they don't steal your credit card

[tallhydrant625]

There are scam busting sites with online lists of the names scammers use, their email addresses, stock copy/paste emails, paid-for-in-cash cell phone numbers, stolen pictures and fake websites they use. You could start your search at one of those sites.

If you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even partial sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.