OC problem...

OK, here's my story.... I posted this on the OC forum, but I thought it might see more traffic here.

I quickly got the 7 referrals needed (and an extra one for good measure)to get the free camera on cameras4free. However, I had trouble going green myself. I actually did three offers. When the 3rd didn't go through, I emailed them again and asked what was going on. They quickly let my offer go through and told me I had successfully completed 3 offers. So, even though I only needed 8 total offers done to get the camera, between myself and my referrals, I completed 11. Not a bad deal for OC.

After a few weeks, the account went to STV and everthing seemed normal. After another two weeks, I emailed them and asked for a tracking number because my apartment building has a lock and there's no way to get to my apartment. I just wanted to be sure I'm home when it arrives, if possible. OC emailed me back saying they would have the tracking numbers early last week. When the number didn't show by Wednesday, I emailed again and asked about it. They replied that the numebr would be here on Friday. Again, Friday came and no number, so I emailed them again Yesterday (Tuesday). They replied with a tracking number and sent me an email saying my camera had been shipped. Time to celebrate? Not quite.

I looked up the tracking number on the UPS website and it came up as invalid. I contacted UPS by phone and they also verified that the number is invalid. So, I contacted OC again and they said the item hasn't been scanned yet and that I should give it ONE DAY for scanning. I waited one day and there's still no change on the tracking number, so I just phoned UPS again for further info on how this whole thing works. The UPS person said the number is still invalid. They said the number should show up as belonging to OC, if the tracking number is indeed correct. It does not show up as belonging to OC and there is no way, according to UPS, that the number will ever be used to send me a camera. In other words, either OC lied to me about the number or there is something very wrong.

So, my questions are...

1) Does anyone know where OC is located, just in case the tracking number is registered to some umbrella company or something? That is, is the camera shipped from OC or some other vendor?

2) Any other advice? I don't want to email them again and call them liars because I don't want my account to magically disappear, but I feel like there's some problem.

1) I believe they ship from ecost so it wouldn't show up as coming from OC. Does the number look like a UPS tracking number ie, start with 1Z... and 16 characters long? They may have sent you some internal order number or it may be a tracking number from a different company. I know when I used to ship a lot of packages we would print out all the FedEX shipping labels but then if the item wasn't ready, the label would sit until the product was ready.... and the tracking number wouldn't register with FedEX until it was picked up and scanned.

ecost doesn't look like the most reliable supplier either. This was on their website under shipping AT A MINIMUM, WE PROMISE THAT ALL IN STOCK ORDERS WILL BE SHIPPED IN 30 DAYS, HOWEVER, WE STRIVE TO SHIP ORDERS MUCH MORE QUICKLY.