stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) (10/26/88)
In article <10319@cup.portal.com>, Doug_R_Platt@cup.portal.com writes: > > What many people don't realize is that LEGALLY you have MANY more > rights when ordering via mail order if the order is paid for with > credit card rather than a check. If you pay with a check, the You're right! Based on a first-hand close call I would advise that you *NEVER* "prepay" for a mail-order product by check if you regard the money involved as significant. Either COD or use a Mastercard/VISA. I ordered a $2000 Leading Edge computer about 3 years ago from what I thought was a "reputable" dealer. They gave me a 3 week delivery date via phone but never verified this by mail. Well, 3 weeks into my "purchase" I began querying them regarding delivery of my machine. I got all sorts of conflicting explanations and assurances. Finally a company employee admitted that they hadn't shipped a machine in the past 2 months due to a little legal dispute between the manufacturer (Mitsubishi) and its U.S. vendor (Leading Edge) which had temporarily drained their inventory. Rolling into the 5th week I gave them an ultimatum: They had already *charged* my VISA and my VISA payment was coming due (and I always pay in full); if I did not receive a machine within 3 days I was going to cancel the order. I was nervous about how this would be handled on my VISA -- would VISA still hold me accountable for the charged amount until it was reimbursed by the mail order company? A fellow employee advised me that (at least in the state of California) there were special consumer rights covering credit card purchases. Sure enough, on the back of my BankAmericard VISA statement it said: | SPECIAL RULE FOR CREDIT CARD PURCHASES | If you have a problem with the quality of goods or services that you | purchased with a credit card and you have tried in good faith to | correct the problem with the merchant, you may not have to pay the | remaining amount due on the goods or services. You have this protection | only when the purchase price was more than $50 and the purchase was made | in your home state or within 100 miles of your mailing address. Anyway, the computer did not arrive by my deadline. I wrote a little letter to the VISA people explaining the situation and mailed in the balance of my payment. Three days later the machine showed up via UPS; I refused it. The mail order company threw a fit and advised me that they were going to charge me a "10% restocking fee" -- I advised Bank of America that I would not accept that charge. About a month later I received notification from a Los Angeles *BANKRUPTCY* court that the mail order company had dissolved and that based on an examination of company records I appeared to have a claim against the company and was invited to fight it out with other creditors. Thank GOD I used a credit card! I still shudder to think of all the suckers that must have gone down the tubes on this one -- imagine 2 months worth of backorders from a *very* busy mail order company! The BA statement quoted above apparently only applies to intrastate (or <100 miles distant) purchases and, theoretically, mightn't have protected me; the mail order number was in *Nevada*. However, in my case, the VISA billing was done through a California sister company located in CA -- I was going to really lean on that fact if Bank of America had given me a problem. I suspect, however, that under the circumstances Bank of America would have stood behind me even if it had been purely an out-of-state purchase. Good banking institutions value their good customers and their good reputations. Lessons? (1) Be damned careful when mail ordering an expensive item. Be suspicious and don't take any blithe explanations if your order doesn't show up on time. Ask the company to NOT charge your card until your order is shipped; if the company refuses to do that you are likely dealing with a B grade company; many mail order companies announce that as their policy. (2) Don't let greed (for a great price) overwhelm your good sense; if the transaction isn't proceeding to your satisfaction, make a strategic withdrawal! (3) Check with your credit card company to determine its policy in such cases and to discover any laws which may protect you. (4) If possible, buy within state (or otherwise comply with the restrictions spelled out by your credit card company). (5) (possibly) consider paying only PART of your credit card bill if you believe you might have an ongoing problem with the merchant and/or the product. Although I try to always pay my credit card bills in full (to avoid finance charges, of course) a small finance charge might be the cheapest consumer insurance you could buy; note that the BA statement says I have the right to dispute "the remaining amount due on the goods or services". (6) DON'T assume that mail order hassles are infrequent; I've had more than one serious mail order difficulty (would you believe I once ordered Turbo Pascal and got a *pirate* copy with "Turbo Pascal" hand scrawled across a generic label?). If you bargain hunt among mail order vendors you ARE taking a significant risk no matter what you might think and no matter what they might tell you.
franklin@rpics (W. Randolph Franklin WRF) (10/27/88)
I've had good luck ordering expensive items (camera, VCR) by mail, by doing this. 1. Checking old issues of the magazines in the library to see if the company was in existence 3 years ago. 2. Getting the price and availability over the phone, but not placing the order then. 3. Writing a letter confirming that the item is in stock, placing the order, giving a card number, and stating that this is an authorization to charge the card when (and not before) the item is shipped. The theory (which I haven't tested) is that writing a letter brings them under the postal fraud laws if they misprepresented something or didn't ship, and stating that they are not to charge before shipping means that if they do they have committed fraud and I shouldn't have to pay the bill even if they are in another state. I did have bad luck when JC Whitney went bankrupt after charging my card but before shipping, but I was too naive to protest things then. ------------ Wm. Randolph Franklin, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (518) 276-6077, Franklin@turing.cs.rpi.edu