If a company has distributors or resellers there are legal agreements.
A distributor typically consolidates smaller customers, takes credit and currency exchange risks, and provides front line sales and tech support.
In trade, the distributor relies on the company not poaching their customers by establishing relationship through direct interaction. A company "going direct" can undercut a distributor, so there's a detante in place where both win.
In other words, the company is obligated to send you to their reseller/distributor. What gets really complicated is there's territorial exclusivity. But everybody is out to maximize revenue and get return and word of mouth business. So, in theory, no customer can get abused.
Now, if the distributor is unresponsive and is besmirching the company's products, obviously the company needs to find out.
This amateur hour stuff that's being alleged in this forum is extremely out of the ordinary, pretty much uncharted waters in my experience. I was on the company side for a couple of decades and everybody went out of their way to be responsive and keep their customers happy. Distributors and factory, and everybody respected boundaries. But these were 8 to 10 digit revenue outfits.
This situation based on your reports is just weird all around. In hindsight, it should have been a chargeback on the credit card. It still may be a case for interstate fraud if there's evidence of it...postal inspectors, FTC, BBB, not sure who else might still be within any statute of limitations. If you have evidence of it.