MYRON SHORE IS AN AVID GOLFEr. HE'S ALSO A model credit-card customer. As it turns out, those two qualities made Shore an ideal candidate to be ripped off.

Shore is hardly alone. He is one of thousands of golfers to fall victim to an offer that sounds like a risk-free way to test supposedly high-tech golf equipment. Instead, it turns into an extended stay in consumer hell--countless calls to unresponsive customer-service departments, a series of disputes with credit-card companies and complaints to the Better Business Bureau--all in an effort to get your money back.

It's a con that the BBB, state attorney general offices and federal prosecutors estimate has been practiced by as many as 50 companies in the past 10 years, prompting complaints in every state in the country. "This is absolutely on the radar screen and it's absolutely fraudulent, there's no doubt about it," says Ken Julian, assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California. "We're talking about thousands of victims from all walks of life. It will be a matter of months, not years, before you see indictments."

Here's how it works, according to investigators and consumers in dozens of cases reported to the Federal Trade Commission and described in Freedom of Information documents obtained by Golf Digest:

In some instances, it's classic boiler-room telemarketing. In others, it's a personalized mailer detailing an exclusive offer of custom-made clubs that comes with a toll-free number or an invitation to a golf instruction "seminar" that morphs into the sort of aggressive sales pitch you might find at a bad time-share development.

You get an offer to "play test" a new line of clubs--no obligation. You give a credit-card number as "security" for the clubs that are to be sent to you. You return the clubs within the required period but discover your credit card has been charged--it turns out that you "bought" the clubs the day you signed up for the test. And if you've kept the clubs for the 60-day trial run usually mandated by the agreement, most credit-card companies tell you it's too late to dispute the charges. Faced with an uncooperative equipment company, you're stuck.

"It just makes you shake your head," Julian says. Adds Shore: "It didn't matter who I talked to, I'd get a different story every time, one excuse after another. It felt like they were going to do whatever they were going to do whenever they wanted to do it."

Often, it appears, when customers attempt to return the clubs and get the charges taken off their credit cards, they are met with delay tactics, offers

of additional equipment or no response at all.

"That's what their gimmick is," says Kim Burge, director of trade practices for the BBB of the Southland in southern California, where many of the companies are located (see "Got a complaint," page 81). "They purposely do it and offer a product for 60 days. Why else would you pick that number? If you make it shorter, a consumer can dispute it."

Some customers, like Jeff Duby of San Diego, not only lost their money, they didn't end up with the golf clubs, either.

"Every time I followed up--assuming I was able to get through--they kept promising that the clubs would be shipped the following week. Of course, it never happened," says Duby, who was out $700 until the charges were reversed after he threatened to cancel his credit card. "The embarrassment of falling victim to a telemarketing scam also prevents people from pursuing the issue. I know that I felt pretty stupid."

Shore says that in his case, the company relented after his complaints started reaching the Internet. "It took four months and several phone calls to get my refund," he says from his home in Rural Hall, N.C. "They gave me a different excuse for the delay in my refund each time I called. I will never, ever test clubs in this fashion again."

Duby's and Shore's difficulties arose with a company, Gary Player Direct, which was licensing the Gary Player name but was not part of Gary Player Group--Player's personal company. The relationship between Gary Player Direct, which has declared bankruptcy, and its customers apparently is no better than the relationship between the company and its namesake. According to Tim Smith, vice president for the Gary Player Group Inc., "Gary has pulled money out of his own pocket to refund money to a customer complaining about these guys."

Warrior Custom Golf Inc. of Irvine, Calif., is one of the companies disputing its unsatisfactory rating by the Better Business Bureau for the test-play telemarketing of golf clubs. The BBB says "the company is not interested in test results but instead uses the test to deceive people into purchasing their golf clubs."

Warrior spokesman Stewart Wilson says he is gathering information to present to the BBB about complaints against the company. "Obviously [the BBB] had a perception of us," he says. "We think that after they see what we have to show them they'll have a different view of how we do business."