In at least 10 years of heavy online purchasing I have never come across such a disreputable firm as Ira Wood & Sons, Inc.

Ira Wood & Sons, Inc. appears to have some kind of online cash flow scam going here. Unlike most reputable online resellers, Ira Wood & Sons, Inc. collects its cash before they have the item on hand. In my case Ira Wood & Sons, Inc. just kept putting off the shipping dates until I finally asked for a refund—even the refund was delayed.

It seems that Ira Wood & Sons, Inc. offers lower prices than others to secure the orders then (in my case) never ship the items. They are always friendly and apologetic with seemingly good excuses and intentions. Meanwhile they had my money for over 3.5 months and I never received the products.

I ordered 2 Panasonic fans from Ira Wood & Sons, Inc. late night on Sat 2/19/11 and was charged for the fans ($433.64) on Sunday 2/20/11. At the time this was a great price with free shipping. I should have checked the online reviews first—I usually do. I shouldn’t have rushed the purchase before going to bed.

The first disappointment was the following note on my receipt: “As agreed upon, the products listed here have been reserved for you and are expected to ship On or After 03/09/2011. Your order will be held for one complete shipment.”

I had never agree to this and it was the first I’d been told there was a delay, but it was not too concerning at first. Most reputable firms will tell you the item is backordered and offer a choice of cancelling the order before they charge or a refund if the charge has already gone through.

It slipped my mind until 3/20/11 when I complained about not getting my fans yet. Ira Wood response: “As stated in my previous email, the items on your order have yet to complete the shipping process. You have requested I provide you with a estimated ship date. The current estimated ship date for your order is 04/05/2011.”

Of course this date came and went. I complained again on 4/14/11 and got a response on 4/15/11: “As stated in my previous email, the items on your order have yet to complete the shipping process. You have requested I provide you with a estimated ship date. The current estimated ship date for your order is 04/26/2011.”

I called and sent an email again on 4/28/11 and they said they would get back to me within a day and never did.

I contacted them again on 5/6/11 and received this response: “Per our phone conversation, the items on your order have yet to complete the shipping process. You have requested I provide you with a estimated ship date. The current estimated ship date for your order is 05/18/2011.”

This whole time, when I spoke with representatives on the phone they always claimed that the problem was with Panasonic not being able to keep the supply up to the demand for a popular product. Of course this turned out to be nonsense.

By 5/31/11 I had read all the bad reviews on Ira Wood and asked for a refund to my credit card here is their ridiculous response: “This is to inform you that a refund has been set up for you. Your refund is now pending approval and processing. Once your refund is approved and processed, you will receive a separate email with receipt of your refund. Please allow 3-5 business days for your refund to complete processing. Thank you for your patience.”

Of course after 3-5 business days there was no refund. This time on 6/9/11 I called several times and could not get a human I left a very angry message demanding an immediate refund and questioning why it would take more than 1 day for a refund to show up on my AMEX acct. The refund finally showed up on my account the same day—6/9/11.

By this time there were also far more online resources for the fans at similar prices. I ordered 2 more fans from 2 different sellers on 6/1/11.I received both fans on 6/3/11 and had both fans installed by 6/5/11 before I even received a refund from Ira Wood & Sons, Inc.!