An interesting experience occurred recently ordering a tent made in Japan through a "global" seller, global.rakuten.com, an affiliate, tenshi.com, and the store, kompas.com.
I used a bank service that assigns a separate credit card number to each transaction, a number that can only be used once, and under a limited amount.
The order was taken and confirmed by all of the above. My credit card account was then deluged with attempts at charges from a number of companies I never heard of in the USA, but only one went through, the bank's system having worked as expected, and as of last check, was for a fairly inexpensive subscription to a glamor (nice word) magazine. I then got an email from Kompas telling me they would not ship the tent outside Japan. The credit card account was immediately closed, so am not up to speed yet with what's happened since.
But if a regular credit card # had been provided, I'd probably have gotten creamed.
The banks usually accept the risk for this type of thing, but it can still be a hassle.
Thought you should know.
