How can I find out if this site is a scam?

Factual Questions
1

I ordered some items from them today. They are located in Russia and only take Western Union or bank tranfers. That makes me suspicious. How can I find out if they are legitimate? Does anyone have information on them?

I made a calculated decision when ordering and am prepared to lose the money but it occurred to me that maybe I should have checked here first.

2

A whois tells me:
Domain Name:gemstonesgift.com
Record last updated at 2004-06-23 02:51:54
Record created on 2003/6/21
Record expired on 2005/6/21

So the domain name has been around for over 12 months. If it were a scam, it may (I say may) have been closed down before now.

Google has 5 or 6 pages of sites that link to them, but most of them look like online gift catalogues which may or may not have reviewed the site in terms of viability, only that they sell stuff.

Probably not much help.

3

I dunno that being around for 12 months makes a business legit…

Here’s a link to some more useful WHOIS info. If nothing else, with that info you have someone or something (the owner’s email ISP, the registrar, anything) to go after if things go awry.

Also what I saw on Google shows about 40 sites linking to the site in question but none of them jump out at me as being reputible.

Good luck! I’m interested to know how it works out!

4

What is this “Whois” thingy, and how does one use it?

5

It’s a voluntary way for people who own domains to associate some personal info with their domain name. Things like the names and addresses of the people responsible, phone and fax numbers, stuff like that. There’s no guarantees that any of this is truthful, unless a certain recent law to that effect actually passed.

The easiest way to use it is from the command line, but if your OS doesn’t ship with a whois program of its own then I’d go with Sam Spade.

6

I wired them the money but accidentally sent too much. They contacted me and indicated that there was another item they could include for the difference. This makes me feel better since I don’t believe they would do that if they just wanted to take my money without sending me anything in return.

BTW Western Union to Russia is extremely expensive. Is there a reason they don’t use credit cards? This is the part that seems really suspicious to me.