Customer protection from unethical coral vendors??

[reefracer]

I along with most likely numerous others have been burnt by a certain unscrupulous coral vendor that has failed to ship goods, does not communicate about business deals, lies and cheats us out of hard earned money. Is there any way that we can protect ourselves from people like this?? I have a fairly substantial sum of goods owed me from some DOAS and unshipped goods and I though everything was going to be settled only to be experiencing the same old games again. Games like not responding to e-mails, statements of intent to ship with no shipment or response as to why, and no calls back and constantly full voicemail boxes. I have even heard complaints about this vendor on other forums. If anybody has any information as to what people/channels need to be opened to recoup lost funds from this vendor please share it. Also, some ideas about how we as consumers can protect ourselves from having to deal with things like this in the future would be nice. One just doesn't expect to have service and treatment like that when a vendor has a website and his banner on a country-wide forum. Anyway, information and thoughts are appreciated.