Credit card protection

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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20,322
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
I ordered something from an online store today. Got a call a few minutes later to "confirm the order". Actually he was trying to sell me more accessories. I mean hard sell, wouldn't take the hint. Finally we got off the topic and he says, 'oh btw that product is backordered 3-4 weeks - is that OK?' I said no that is not going to work I will have to cancel the entire order. He says things to encourage me to keep the order. I decline, leaving no doubt of my wishes. He asks if I still want the accessories, I say "what would I put them with if I can't get the part they accessorize?" I reiterate to cancel the order. Politely but assuredly.

So why am I worried that they have my CC number and are going to use it?

And, what can I do to prevent it?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I ordered something from an online store today. Got a call a few minutes later to "confirm the order". Actually he was trying to sell me more accessories. I mean hard sell, wouldn't take the hint. Finally we got off the topic and he says, 'oh btw that product is backordered 3-4 weeks - is that OK?' I said no that is not going to work I will have to cancel the entire order. He says things to encourage me to keep the order. I decline, leaving no doubt of my wishes. He asks if I still want the accessories, I say "what would I put them with if I can't get the part they accessorize?" I reiterate to cancel the order. Politely but assuredly.

So why am I worried that they have my CC number and are going to use it?

And, what can I do to prevent it?
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Call him back and demand a written confirmation of the cancellation. Even absent that, if he charges anything to the card, call the CC company, dispute the charges, explain the circumstances, and tell them that you're willing to prosecute for fraud.

Little you can do if he turns around and sells your CC number, though there are obviously laws against that. Proving it was him that did it would be difficult.

This is a good reason to use those one-time-use numbers that many CCs offer.
 
I ordered a pair of sunglasses through an online store about 6 months to a year ago. They acknowledged my order but I never received the sunglasses nor was my account charged. After a couple weeks I tried to contact them but the e-mail was undeliverable. I tried a bit more to contact them with no success. I wondered the same thing about the credit card but so far nothing has happened. In fact I had forgotten about the whole thing until reading this post.
 
gprellwitz said:
This is a good reason to use those one-time-use numbers that many CCs offer.
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Won't help solve all of the problem, Grant. In this case there is no legitimate use of the card, so the first use could be a fraud. They won't get to use #2, though.

I use the "one time use" numbers every time I get nervous. Works well!

-Skip
 
Dave,

I wouldn't worry about it at all. I use American Express pretty exclusively, and their dispute process is outstanding. The same, I imagine, is true for the other big CC companies.

CC protection laws are very strong, and you're generally never responsible for fraud. If they go ahead and use your card even though you told them to cancel the order, it'd incredibly unlikely that they'd win a dispute. If you're really worried (and I wouldn't be), you can always get a new card number, but it's really not worth it.

-Felix

PS: Remember when Aloha Airlines went bankrupt a few months ago? I was in Hawaii when that happened and my return ticket was with Aloha. A quick dispute with Amex, and I got my money back. Very simple and no hassle.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I ordered something from an online store today. Got a call a few minutes later to "confirm the order". Actually he was trying to sell me more accessories. I mean hard sell, wouldn't take the hint. Finally we got off the topic and he says, 'oh btw that product is backordered 3-4 weeks - is that OK?' I said no that is not going to work I will have to cancel the entire order. He says things to encourage me to keep the order. I decline, leaving no doubt of my wishes. He asks if I still want the accessories, I say "what would I put them with if I can't get the part they accessorize?" I reiterate to cancel the order. Politely but assuredly.

So why am I worried that they have my CC number and are going to use it?

And, what can I do to prevent it?
Click to expand...
Classic Brooklyn camera store scumbags.

http://thomashawk.com/2005/11/priceritephoto-abusive-bait-and-switch.html
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/

Don't worry. Just watch your statements. You can reverse the charge if one shows up. Chargebacks cost them a fortune.
 
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Let'sgoflying! said:
wow guess I have to check out vendors more carefully in future, this is not the only techondig-bashing site
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7593_102-0.html?hhTest=1&forumID=58&threadID=273339&messageID=2639046
Click to expand...

Many years ago I raised a bit of hell for a group of camera stores in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. That area is a favored resort for Canadians, and is populated by a large group of cameras/electronics stores which operate seasonally. Just about every one of them was operated by uncles, cousins, brothers of the same family. And all were extensions of the NYC/Brooklyn genre as seen in the Links provided in this thread. BAIT and SWITCH operations, big time.

James Tierney was Maine's Attorney General at the time, and a regular customer of my camera store. You may still be able to see Jim on Court TV, he having become the legal advisor(some years ago) for the program.

I complained to Jim about the slime-balls at the Beach. He had Consumer Affairs personnel visit me several times to pick my brain. They arrived looking like they were right the hell "off-the-farm," except for the leather attache cases; and interviewed me at length. Then they'd go to the stores at the Beach, again "off-the-farm," and go shopping. The next visit with me they'd claim amazement at how smooth the culprits are at being multi-lingual and lying right through their eye-teeth. "We thought that when Jim Tierney gave us your letters of information it was a case of a sorehead small merchant. But the more we got into it the deeper and worse it became as we played the role of the uninformed consumer." A TV station picked up on the A-G's investigation and ran a several day's expose of the culprits.

I was told by Jim that "We may not be able to shut them down, but we can make them become very uncomfortable because of all the publicity."
Several of the stores moved out and back to NYC "Primarily because our teenage children feel more comfortable when living in the realm of our religious culture than in this community." Yeah, right!!!

One of the scams was to not ship the telephone orders. When the customer would complain about not having received the ordered merchandise the "friendly voice" would apologize and issue a credit to the customer's credit card. However, the A-G investigation discovered that one store was holding nearly $100,000.00 in credit card "credits" which had never been turned into the credit card issuer(s). That was one of the stores which slipped back into the Big Apple, after being required to post a bond sufficient to satisfy the credits they'd been "holding."

HR
 
Visa says they cannot block a vendor's access, all disputes are handled after the bogus charge. I guess I could cancel the card and get a new one.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Visa says they cannot block a vendor's access, all disputes are handled after the bogus charge. I guess I could cancel the card and get a new one.
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You certainly could. IMHO, it's overkill at this stage. Just watch the statements, which you should be doing anyways.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
wow guess I have to check out vendors more carefully in future, this is not the only techondig-bashing site
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7593_102-0.html?hhTest=1&forumID=58&threadID=273339&messageID=2639046
Click to expand...

Try http://resellerratings.com but be aware that the scum themselves will try to put in lots of glowing reviews of themselves. The site takes some measures to prevent that. Try looking at only negative reviews.

The easy answer? Stick with the tops sites like Amazon, NewEgg or buy.com. Possibly saving an extra $5 ain't worth the grieif.
 
mikea said:
Try http://resellerratings.com but be aware that the scum themselves will try to put in lots of glowing reviews of themselves. The site takes some measures to prevent that. Try looking at only negative reviews.

The easy answer? Stick with the tops sites like Amazon, NewEgg or buy.com. Possibly saving an extra $5 ain't worth the grieif.
Click to expand...

If you're looking at camera equipment, B&H is the only online store I'll deal with. They offered up a couple of things, but never pressured, and everything they say is in stock is actually IN STOCK and is US branded equipment (not grey market imports from Canada or wherever). Good prices and they've treated me well.
 
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