> My recommendation is to skip Amazon for anything expensive or at high risk of shipper theft/fraud. Based on this, as you say, "rare" experience? That seems u

> My recommendation is to skip Amazon for anything expensive or at high risk of shipper theft/fraud. Based on this, as you say, "rare" experience? That seems unwise when aiming for the best average outcome. Also what would be a better alternative (provided you still want to shop and pay online)? I suspect that, while the rate of problematic experience might be slightly lower with smaller dealers, the average lost value for the customer is not (since there is no Amazon middleman that has any financial interest in keeping the customer around for future shopping, and hence their money is probably just lost when something goes wrong that the dealer is unable or unwilling to resolve)