Adult boots: Ugg boots are a serious investment. (FRAN DURNER / Anchorage Daily News)

They were Ugg boots, in black, with zippers up the back. I'd been looking at them on the Internet since last season when I saw them on a cool-looking woman on a First Friday. They had a sophisticated-sounding name, "Women's Knightsbridge," and seductive online marketing paragraphs about bare feet and warm sheepskin and "fresh, fashion-forward style." I had been wearing fashion-backward knockoffs from Old Navy for years. I was over 30 now. I wanted big-girl boots.

But they came at a big girl price. And it was not really in my budget.

Then, one Sunday in October, it struck me that surely in that vast sea of online commerce, there had to be one pair of Knightsbridge boots, in size 5, on sale. I eBayed and Googled. Same price. Same price. Same price. Then, bingo.

"Discount UGGs Boots!" the Web site beckoned, displaying the official Ugg logo and a Better Business Bureau "accredited business" symbol. I scanned a testimonial from "Kimberly in Fort Worth," gushing, "Your customer service is the BEST!" Did they have the Knightsbridge? Yes, they did! In my size! At 40 percent off! Free 10-day shipping! Incredible. I keyed in my credit card number.

No sooner had I pushed enter when my phone rang. A friendly female robot voice was on the line: "This is your bank. Did you just make a charge in ...," there was a pause, and then an unfriendly male robot voice finished the sentence with a flat effect, "... LATVIA." I heard clicking. A human operator came on.

"Did you just make a charge at www.sweatboots. com?" she asked.

"No. Or, yes. I guess," I said. It sounded ridiculous when I heard it out loud. "I didn't know it was in Latvia. Should I cancel it?"

"I can't tell you that." She sounded uninterested and I detected an Indian accent. "If you authorized the charge, we can't reverse it."

I hung up. I decided not to worry. It was a great deal. The Ugg is made of Australian sheepskin. Maybe they had a warehouse in Latvia, or a factory, or even a satellite flock of Australian sheep. It was a globalization thing. They just needed to unload some inventory in their Eastern European division.

And so I waited. Ten days passed. Nothing. I went to the Web site and called the customer service number. No one picked up. That's when I noticed the site was a little funny.

"Do you know now it is an environment to buy Cheap UGG Knightsbridge Boots? Hope you can buy you satisfied products," it read. "We dedicated to bring buyers the top grade ugg boot."

I found a customer service e-mail address and sent a message asking about my order. I called my bank.

"And what did you purchase at sweatboots.com?" asked the banking agent.

"Uggs," I said. "Forty percent off."

"Really?" she said. "Dang. That's a good deal."

Then she told me they couldn't do anything until a month passed without delivery.

The next day, an e-mail appeared in my inbox. It read something like, "Please do not worry about your order. Boots is still in factories. Do not cancel your order. Sincerely, Dirk."

I went back to the Web site, where I noticed a tiny "About us" link at the bottom of the page and found this: " 'UGG' is not a brand name but an age old generic term for this style of Australian-made sheepskin boot."

I was starting to understand what I was dealing with. It was age-old and generic. A scam. High-priced, counterfeit Uggs. I wrote another e-mail, asking to cancel my order. But I doubted I would see the money again.

Sometimes you have to pay money to learn an obvious lesson. I think of it as tuition for the university of adulthood. In hindsight, this lesson was so obvious it hurt. Pick your commerce cliche. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You get what you pay for. Read the fine print. Caveat emptor.

And so I did what I should have done in the first place. I went to the real Ugg Web site and ordered real boots. Three days later, they were on my porch. Exactly what I wanted.

As I was slipping my bare foot into fog-colored sheepskin, a reply to my cancellation e-mail arrived from Latvia: "txs for your letter and sorry for later reply. as hot sales, you order is out of stock after your make the payment. we had strive to pick up from other factory, sorry for that. b.rgds."

Dirk was still answering e-mails! Maybe I could get a refund. Perhaps he didn't understand my English, so they didn't know to cancel my order. My friend Erik actually speaks Latvian. He composed an e-mail on my behalf.

"Uz kuram ta var attiekties (To whom it may concern), Ludzu atmaksa manu naudu. (Please refund my money.) Mani zabaki nav ieradies, un tagad vinus vairs negribu. (My boots have not arrived and I do not want them.) Viens menesis is pagajis kops mana pasutijumu. (It has been one month since my order was placed.) Paldies. (Thank you.)"

But then, later that day, I came home from work to find a pink slip from the post office in my mailbox. The next morning at the downtown post office, I was given a beat-up package. The mailing label said it came from China.

I brought it to work and opened it at my desk. There was an authentic-looking UGG shoebox. Inside that, the boots. They were a dead-on match for the real ones, right down to the pattern on the soles and the little metal tag on the heel. But inside them, there was no fog-colored sheepskin. Instead, it was cream-colored fur of indeterminate origin. One of the guys I worked with picked them up and stroked the inside.

"It's probably endangered species," he said.

Sending them back seemed out of the question. How? Writing another Latvian e-mail? And to where? China? Imagine the shipping costs. I put them on my desk. They stayed there for a month.

Then one day a young friend of mine came into the office. I saw her looking at the box. I asked her if she wanted to try them on. They fit like a glove. Her face lit up.

"It's your lucky day," I told her. "They're yours."

Return?: Hardly likely with this address.