Yeah it's kinda useless. My personal experience with sparkfun was a good one tough (kinda). I bought 9 ADXL202 JE SMDs and 6 ADXL202JE breakout boards and some other components a few months ago. I had spent well over $400 US (pretty expensive). But 1) at least they have a helpful forum 2) I even phoned them and responded immediately, where pretty helpful. Some of their custom designed peripherals/boards (call them as you want) are pretty useless I agree on that.

I had a VERY bad experience with Futurlec (www.futurlec.com)a few weeks ago. If you note their site there's no contact information except for the e-mail. They NEVER responded back to my mails and never received my items. Got a refund after about 3 bloody months! They have relatvley cheap prices but are known to be selective scammers (research some online sellers review sites). When things do arrive, shipping always take a loooong time (ANY shipment take a month or so to arrive to Malta--ridiculous I know).

Ever heard of digikey? They have a good reputation, but my friend also had a bad experience with them. He ordered 4 AT89C51AC2 a few days ago. Put em in his training board to test them and none worked. I noticed a sticker on the packaging which said "FAILED" !! BUT At least he received a refund in a short span of time.

Just my 2 cents

Kai Busuttil