23 January 2008

Online shopping and e-mail

I shop online fairly frequently and there have been several notable occasions where during check-out my credit card information was rejected. In each of these cases neither the credit card company nor vendor could tell me why my transactions weren’t going through – so I moved on without purchasing anything.

The first time I remember this happening to me was when I was trying to order a Microsoft Zune Original (I’m actually relieved I never ordered one). To make the story short, Microsoft check-out refused my credit card information despite my credit card company saying they had approved it. Go figure.

The second time was with Gamestop / EB Games. I first phoned EB Games Customer Service and was told that I should contact my credit card company. Okay, fine – I wasn’t surprised as this so far matched my previous experience. What was different this time, however, is that my credit card company informed me they had no record of a transaction request. Eh? How could my credit card be rejected if my credit card company didn’t know I was buying something?

So I called back EB Games where I spoke to a different, much more helpful and informative Customer Service agent. He verified that my credit card information was correct and then dug a little deeper into my situation. It turned out that EB Games (and I assume other vendors must do, as well) sets up various ‘flags’ and if enough of these are triggered then the transaction is denied even if the billing/shipping information is correct. In my case the main ‘flag’ holding me up was that I was using an e-mail with a ‘.ca’ address while my billing information was in the USA. Interesting.

I set up a new account with a ‘.com’ e-mail and my online order went through without any problems.

Different vendors must set up different flags as the vast majority of the time I don’t have this problem. Anywhoo, now I wonder whether this was the cause of the problem I had when trying to order a Zune Original. Curious.

No comments: