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[telecom] Crucial.com Cancels Legitimate Orders

Over the last weekend, I ordered thirty-two gigabytes of memory for my personal Windows 2016 server I am running on my home network. I gave the vendor a shipping address where I routinely receive personal deliveries.

They are a manufacturer/seller of memory and solid state drives. They were highly recommended to me by the technician who built and configured my home server.

Yesterday, I got an email saying they had canceled my order. When I called to find out why, they told me it was because they were unable to confirm my delivery address.

I resubmitted the order instead giving them my street address for a shipping address. They canceled that order, too. On further discussion, they told it was because my credit card wasn't associated with those addresses. Of course not. They are shipping address, not billing addresses. I use a post office box for my billing address.

They gave me this nonsensical dance about how they had so much business with the federal government that they are required to have higher standards in confirming addresses to ship to. I couldn't believe what I was hearing since this was a personal purchase.

At first, they suggested I go to Newegg or one of a few other vendors. I got a supervisor on the phone. He tried to give me the same story.

We went back and forth. Finally, he said that he could have their credit department call me today and try to confirm my shipping address. He said that he would arrange for free overnight shipping [if they could get this resolved] to make it up to me. He said I would be contacted within twenty-four hours.

I am well aware that there is a lot of credit card fraud going on. But there should be effective ways to resolve this when someone who has placed a legitimate order tries to resolve it with the seller.

Have anyone else here ever heard of anything so utterly ridiculous?

Fred

***** Moderator's Note *****

The problem is that the losses mount up very quickly if they /don't/ check, and the profit they would make on one transaction isn't nearly enough to deal with the pushback from the credit card consortium.

Sellers figured out that their internal costs for a single loss far exceed the profit they might make if it goes through, so front-line call-takers are always required to brush you off if you don't meet the usual expectations.

There are several ways to deal with this: all of them are based on the assumption that you *have* to use this vendor, but it's usually easier to just pay a buck or two more for something from Amazon.

  1. Ask the bank which issued your credit card to authorize a different shipping address. Once that's on your account, the problem goes away: some banks will, but some won't.

  1. Offer to pay cash, with either a postal money order or a teller's check from your bank. It will delay the order, to be sure, but it's an ordinary, arms-length transaction that will satisfy any credit manager.

  2. Open an account with the vendor, and do whatever they require for new accounts: a deposit, a letter of credit from your bank, etc. Of course, this only works if you're going to be buying things from them on a regular basis.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Fred Atkinson
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From: "Fred Atkinson"

Well, they told me to send my order through and it would go through this time so long as I used the same address I used on the last one. So I did.

Guess what? They canceled it, too!

I got on the phone with them and read them the riot act. I was told to submit it again and they would see that it went through.

I did call AMEX and I had them add my street address to my card as a shipping address only. Maybe that mitigated things some.

I checked my order status this morning. It appeared to have been approved. But they've made a skeptic out of me. So I called a few minutes ago. They told me it was finalized and was waiting to be shipped today. They also told me it was slated to go via UPS.

They gave me free overnight shipping for all of the aggravation I've suffered.

Haven't these people ever heard of Juran, Deming, Crosby, and Taguchi?

Hopefully, I will have my memory sticks by tomorrow.

I imagine AMEX is wondering why there are four pending charges against my credit card for that rather large amount. Supposedly, the other three will drop off shortly.

I wonder if they will include some Alka Seltzer in the shipment? At least that would mitigate it some . They sure know how to give their customers an ulcer.

I am looking forward to doing their customer satisfaction survey! Yee-Ow! But I wonder if they even bother with those things [judging by my experience with them].

Fred

Reply to
Fred Atkinson

In article you write:

All the time. My credit card banks have both my PO Box and my street address so the authorization usually works, but there are a lot of broken systems that either freak out when they see something like this:

John L PO Box 123

456 Hummingbird Lane Anytown USA 96943

They can't deal with a PO Box even if there is also a street address.

Or sometimes they just accept the PO Box and give it to UPS or Fedex, who should reject it, but sometimes they accept the shipment anyway and it bounces around until it's sent back. One particularly clever time UPS e-mailed me to say this address is no good, can you fix it, and they gave me the option of changing the "street name" (PO Box) or the number (123) but not both.

R's, John

Reply to
John Levine

This becomes more challenging if, as my family did when I was growing up, your post-office box is in a completely different place from your residence, and (as was common in those pre-E911 days) there were no street addresses where you lived. I remember having to give my father's work address (in the same federal building as the post office) to get some things delivered -- which was not a thing then the way it is now.

-GAWollman

Reply to
Garrett Wollman

[apparently because shipping address didn't match PO Box billing address]

Don't most online sites ask for both a billing address and a shipping address for this very reason? Crucial doesn't?

Reply to
Michael Moroney

I've never had this issue with anyone else before.

They should try to confirm that the order was legitimate. The fact that they can't confirm the address doesn't mean anything.

This is disgraceful.

I appreciate that they are trying to mitigate fraud. But there is a right way to do it.

This isn't the right way.

Regards,

Fred

Reply to
Fred Atkinson

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