Stealyourcreditcard.com

Sweetface wants an extra filter for our espresso maker. So, silly me, thinks it would be on the Mr. Coffee website. But no. There’s not so much as a replacement glass carafe. Sure, I could call their number and track down a service representative and then call them and ask if they have the part. But it’s much easier for me to tell Sweetface I couldn’t find it, so that he does it for me.

Inside of five minutes he finds one for sale. (Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit that my Internet research skills are so poor in comparison. But keep in mind that I haven’t spent anywhere near as much time tracking down answers to obscure programming problems and free porn.) The owners of the site, though, are obviously high from the heady scent of too much Espresso Roast and think that we are foolish enough to pay $10 what amounts to a little tin cup with perforations in the bottom.

He also found this sorry excuse for a web site, specifically mentioning the exact part we are looking for repeatedly. The form-generated page is impressive. The author’s grasp of the English language is marginally better than that usually reserved for spam. It has the dizzying effect of seeming to be trying to say something and have meaning without really imparting any useful information at all.

Sweetface searches on, and finds one for $4.75. Of course, I know in my head that my credit card number is more likely to be stolen at a restaurant than over the Internet. Still, I’m hesitant to purchase things from specialty companies I’ve never dealt with before, and never buy anything without checking them out on the BBB web site. They’re clean. Of course, that only means that the company hasn’t infuriated a customer enough to motivate them to write the BBB for the past 36 months.