With Christmas fast approaching, many shoppers are on the lookout for discounts – but hundreds of B.C. co-op members are learning the hard way that good deals can sometimes go bad.

One of the latest trends among bargain-hunters is using Facebook buyers' co-ops, whose members can score wholesale prices by purchasing as a group.

Kelowna resident Jen Graham said for a while she was getting great deals through one co-op group, PC Importing, which would directly source deals from places like China.

"Maxi dresses were a huge, huge hit," Graham said.

Everything was going well – until the products stopped coming. Graham told CTV News she's paid more than $100 for items that simply never arrived, and getting answers has been difficult.

"They can't tell me where my money is," she said.

Samantha Trarback has had a similar experience. In the beginning, she said items would show up about three weeks after she paid for them, but she's currently still waiting on purchases she made in July.

Trarback said she's spent close to $200 on items she hasn't received, and she knows of many others who are in the same boat.

"Right now, the running total from the people that have made contact with this group is about $7,000," she said.

After pressing for answers, she was blocked from the co-op site, as were hundreds of other members. And instead of an apology from the operators, they got insults – one post called complainers "little Disney group of homeless Facebook junkies."

CTV News managed to track down the operators of the site, who said the company ran into unexpected expenses they couldn't pay for.

"It's been brutal," Chris Clayton of PC Importing said.

Clayton said the whole business is failing, but he promises everyone will get their money back.

"I issued more refunds last night out of our own personal bank account," he said.

Members said they've yet to see any refunds, and they doubt they will.

Still, Graham and Trarback both said they will continue to shop with co-ops, provided they can find some with better track records.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Kent Molgat