Buying from online vendors

Is there anyone out there that buys their beans exclusively online? I am curious.

And I am not looking for names of online vendors - just information on consumer practices.

I hit someones nerve a couple of days ago when I did some research on people who spam or seed guestbooks and forums, promoting one online vendor or another...
What I found surprised and amused me.

Now I know some of you think I get a little obsessed by spammers and forum taggers (and I do...) but you have to remember: Time taken to clean defacements off this forum take time away from me responding to e-mail and writing articles. It is that simple.

Anyhow - what I did find was (after search Google with a couple of keywords based on the spam I was encountering) was that there were over 3000 websites marked with this perculiar spam -- promoting one particular online coffee vendor.

In addition, the english or writing style of all the form entries was the same - the writer was obviously not from North America, English was not their first language AND they learned how to write English from a textbook over 75 years old!

Examples:

---

is a fantastic coffee with magical smooth taste. You don't need sugar or milk to enjoy it. And it is really madly popular now.[/i]..

---

is for special occasions too. When I make it my family has festive mood. Have you tried it? And I never use milk.

---

has too pure taste to be spoiled by milk or sugar. My husband likes to add it, me - never. I think that \"elite\" coffee doesn't need it.[/i]

---

went down a bomb at the party we had last week. I can

I have been observing online commerce since the very beginning of online commerce and I have seen it all.

Yes - I do take it all to seriously.
Yes - I do need to lighten up.

When I approached the \"vendor\" 3 days ago about this phenomenon that I was experiencing on my website, his(her) reply was:

\"You can take your puny little website and shove it up your ass...\"

Not quite the reaction I was expecting when I was \"reporting\" an odd phenomenon.
On the bright side, there were days when I would check into the website and there were thousands of tags for drugs, mortgages and cell-phones - it would take 1/2 hour to clean it all up.

One does not spend 10+ years building a handsome website and following only to have it shat upon by hucksters.

But, as Frederick sez: You take the good with the bad and it is unhealthy to get too hung-up on the bad parts.

Thanks for your thoughts though - it has been helpful to vent.