I felt it was time to upgrade my 12″ PowerBook from 512 to a nice healthy gig. Hawk suggested to me MemoryTogo. (I’m not linking for a reason) He had done business with them and felt they were a pretty good company.
I’d placed the order yesterday for about 144 dollars with shipping. I get a call from them this morning, saying I needed to verify my shipping address. You see my billing address and my shipping address differ, no big deal. They suggested I call my bank and have them add an Alternate address to my account, again, no big deal.
So as it turns out my bank doesn’t have any way of doing this. I’d have to actually change my account address then change it back. This takes five days… who knows why in this day and age, but five days nonetheless. I call back MemoryToGo explain to them my situation. They explain their policy to me, recently they have been experiencing charge backs. Apparently when the shipping and billing addresses don’t match the company can’t get their product back or their money back or something.
Okay well, I explained to them I’d given all my correct info, I’ll accept whatever risk. That turns out to be unacceptable. I’d either have to verify my shipping address or ship to my billing address. Both aren’t really options for me. A polite argument ensued as I’m sure Hawk, Ananth and the rest of the office can attest to.
I then got transferred to a manager. He asked me how far apart my shipping and billing address were, I knew almost automatically he wanted me to drive from one to another to pick it up. I explained to him I didn’t need to inconvenience myself any further by going out of my way for something I asked to be shipped to a specific place. We spoke for a few more minutes and then he told me he’d call back in 10 minutes at noon.
Well its one o’clock now. I haven’t heard back from him. I’ll update on the situation after lunch.
MemoryToGo, your policy is… to say the least stupid and inconvenient for your customers.
I’ve never experienced this in all my days of online purchasing, considering I have NEVER shipped anything to my billing address.
So if you’re looking for pointless hastle go do business with MemoryToGo!
Update #1: I have called back, apparently the manager has been in a meeting since noon. *rolls eyes* I was supposed to get a phone call at 7. I’m not really expecting one tonight. I have since done a little research on the site and I can’t seem to find the Term or Condition I agreed to that I am being forced to follow.
Update #2: I sold out. As I saw it. I had 3 options. First cancel my order and refund my money. Second over night it to me at no cost to my billing address. Finally ship it to my shipping address. Apparently I forgot about this fourth option, ship it to your billing address with a 4 dollar discount. I feel cheated on principle but I do just want my ram.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 1:04 PM and is filed under AppleTalk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Other World Computing has been a lifesaver for me several times. They may not be THE cheapest, but I’ve never had bad luck with them, and their customer service and tech support has been great.
(This is not a paid ad. Seriously. I just like them that much.)
I have bought all my RAM for the past eight or so years from Other World and I have to say that they rock. Not only do they have decent prices (usually 3rd or 4th cheapest at ramseeker.com) but their RAM is 100% guaranteed and they have no problem shipping to something other than the billing address.
Did the same thing you did and got Ram through OWC, great service! Only problem was stupid UPS Driver having no clue where my house was.
OWC is pretty awesome – I’ve purchased several parts and a bunch of RAM from OWC – and each shipment arrived within a few days of ordering! Impressive!
I hear ya with the delivery guys – my DHL guy refuses to leave notes when he comes by and i’m not home – meaning I frequently have to drive 25 miles across town to pick up packages…. @_@
You’re right – in this day in age, it shouldn’t take that long to process. It’s like those “Mail-in Rebates” you see – that require “6-8 weeks for processing” (!!!). I suppose the address policy is to fight ID thiefs, but it’s sure annoying.
Your DHL guy is better than mine. I’ve had to file numerous complaints, as I live in an apartment complex, and they either leave the “heavy boxes” in front of my door- WITHOUT KNOCKING… or the “light boxes” they THROW over the little fence to my patio…
I’ve had so much stuff damaged, that I will not use a company if they use DHL to ship.
Ya, OTW have been great to me. I thought a memory chip from them had gone bad, and they had my records on file and were immediately ready to send me a new one, but it turned out I had a bad motherboard.
Actually, CompUSA has the same issue/policy when it comes to online orders. This is not a unique issue.
I’ve done business online with CompUSA, I’ve never been aware of this policy before.
Sorry for the double post, but I thought I’d link the CompUSA terms for proof, and inform the audience that I had to deal with the same trouble, so I’m just warning you guys.
Link: http://www.compusa.com/help/terms.asp#payment
Either way, its an hassle. I’m in a similar situation with my bill to and ship to addresses. Guess they didn’t know you have a huge audience that listens to your advice. lol
Unintentionally funny! “I didn’t need to incontinence myself any further by going out of my way for something…” Thanks for the much needed laugh!
Haha, thanks. I wrote it in a hurry!
most online retailers actually have this policy – some choose to enforce it – others – not so much. The hitch is the charge-backs they were talking about. A charge back occurs when something goes wrong with an online order…(say you paid for the memory with someone else’s credit card.) The company that you purchased from would get an angry call from the credit cards *real* owner disputing the charges. The real owner would demand his money to be refunded. When the memory company refused, he’d start a ‘charge-back’ procedure with *his* credit card company. The credit card company would then check to see if the memory company had complied with all of its rules for verifying the source of the charge.
One of those rules is if the billing and shipping addresses are the same.
If they’re *not* and the memory company still shipped the order – *they’re* liable. Thus a ‘charge back’ is initiated. If a company gets too many charge-backs they’ll lose their ability to transact with that credit card.
It’s a big deal for a lot of smaller companies. As far as the memory company goes – they have to weigh the value of you being a pissed off non-return customer against *potentially* losing their ability to process credit cards.
Every online merchant I’ve ever been to has the ‘billing/shipping’ address policy. Not all of them seem to enforce it though or maybe there are business rules that allow them to ignore it in certain circumstances.
It’s basically the same reason that PayPal shipments are only protected if you ship your ebay transaction to the ‘verified’ address.
Be prepared to revisit this experience or get a better bank ;)
Its one thing though to have MemoryToGo make me, the *real* credit card owner, jump through hoops to have to deal with them. I mean calling me on the phone speaking with me should be enough to get things shipped to me.
How does having you on the phone prove anything? The number they called is the number you provided. Presumeably someone willing to steal and use a credit card is not unwilling to use a fake number. For all they know the number is a disposable phone.
Sure the situation sucks, but the company is the one that has to take all the risk here, and I know if I were a manager, I wouldn’t be willing to risk my credit taking abilities over a $114 order.
Personaly I think you need to get a different bank/card company. Also note that just because your card came from a particular bank (say BoA) doesn’t mean that the card isn’t handled by someone else (like say MBNA). Always call the number on the back of your card for stuff like this, not the bank.
How does giving an address to a credit card company prove something?
Shipping to the address that matches the address on file with your bank, an institution that verified your identity when you signed up for an account, proves quite a bit.
Crucial.com is probably the best memory seller I’ve ever worked with. I order parts for my customers all the time. Good prices too. They also have this shipping address verify, but they can defiantly help if you call them, and my bank has the same issue of not having a separate shipping address (don’t change anything!) and it never even came up with Crucial.
I’m even a reseller and can get ram on the cheep.
Oh yeah? What could you get a 1gb stick for a 12″ PowerBook G4 1.00 GHz?
From crucial? $112, free shipping, and depending on which state you’re in no tax.
Check here for your mac’s memory.
Crucial is the house brand of Micron, one of the larger RAM manufacturers. Crucial RAM is high quality, and reasonably priced. Unless you are buying enthusiast memory, you should never pay more than whatever Crucial is charging.
[...] Originally posted here by me. [...]
I’ve been using MemoryTen (http://www.memoryx.net) for a long time, not only they deliver anywhere without a problem but also they have specialized memory like server memory and Cisco memory, and usually at really good prices and with more than one option.
That’s where I buy all my Apple memory as well.
I don’t know which credit card company you do business with, but working for a credit card company myself I can tell you they could have added a shipping address to your account. I do it all the time! You should switch credit card company!
The biggest thing i see wrong is that you were spending $144 for 1g stick (at least I hope it was 1g). The most i have paid is $98 for 1g, your going through all this hastle to pay an extra $50. I would suggest looking at dealram.com they dont sell ram but just compare prices, quite nice if you ask me.
You see, I bought two 512 MB sticks for my desktop at Fry’s for about $50 each. It only took about a day.
Microsoft > Apple
How does this make M$ better than Apple? Mac desktops and laptops have used standard memory, hd, and graphics cards for years and years now. Dave’s laptop will use any brand of DDR 200-pin PC2700 ram, it does NOT have to be Mac-specific.
Not to mention the fact that M$ has absolutely no say over the price of the hardware components that computer makers put in their machines.
This entire article has nothing to do with Microsoft vs Apple and everything to do with bad service.
Completely irrelevant comment, fanboy. (And I personally use Microsoft as well so shut it.)
Dave, I use TigerDirect for a lot of things, not sure if they’ll have what you’re looking for but if they do, they generally have decent prices and I have had things shipped to alternate adresses many times.
well I am actually commenting on this as a business owner.
First is seems weird that your bank will not allow an alternate address, however it is their choice.
Next the policy of shipping to the Billing Address has been growing rapidly with the growth of Identity Fraud, it is mearly a way of insuring they are shipping to the true card owner. I grant this too has its holes but it is not the only measure. Some will under no circumstance ship to a P.O. Box so I actually had issues getting my packages personally because I use a PO Box for all of my mail and billing so when the two are combined it was near impossible.
Basically it is a liability issue and they are simply covering their own butts, they stand alot to loose as stated above in a few other comments.
I honestly would put the blame for the inconvinience on the credit agency who issued the card and cannot add a second address. Example my Juniper/Apple card has 3 address’s – Home/PO Box/Arizona Home.
Sorry you had a bad experience, chear up at least in the end you get the upgrade, enjoy the good times of more memory and forget the past of pesky transactions…. ;)
I have to agree with the first couple of posters about OWC. Their prices are pretty good and the service is excellent. The only issue is that they are a very popular company and it can take a while to get a human being on the phone. As soon as you do, the customer service is great. On one occasion I had to have something shipped to an address different from my billing address. I spke with OWC on the phone and they just took some extra steps to confirm my identity (It was the very first time I ordered from them). Once your a regular customer stuff like that is no longer an issue.
Guys, don’t just go straight to otherworld computing. use http://www.ramseeker.com. It’s like pricewatch for mac memory without all the crap.
On the other hand, I prefer a little bit of hassle (sometimes a lot) to actually having some yahoo be able to use my card to send himself stuff.
1. You get a phone call in which you are politely explained what the trouble with your order is (different addresses), why this is a problem for them (recent chargebacks) and what you could do about it (contact your bank).
2. Your bank doesn’t cooperate. You call them and explain. They take you seriously and you get called back by a manager. Who, alas, doesn’t call back at the time promised, but you do hear from them at short notice
3. They give you three options which are all good for you.
Now, what the heck’s your problem? This is good service.
You didn’t really read my post. Go back and try again. My experience with their customer service wasn’t in anyway polite.
Newegg.com has that same policy (shipping address must be verified by card lender).
That has been the only site I’ve ordered merch/parts from that required shipping verification.
As for the bank song and dance, I’ve never gotten that before. Any information I need to log about residence/billing/shipping on my card/account may take a couple days, but they can still store that information. In any case, every bank is different, quite a few of them drastically insolent and snooty actually. I recommend using accounts through credit unions for most e-commerce transactions specifically to avoid bank hassles.
If they have it, they never check it. During this whole thing I received two packages from newegg using the exact same credit card.
I once ran into this problem with newegg when ordering computer components for more than $300 with my dad’s credit card (it was a present). Smaller amounts were fine. After some talking with customer service, I believe it was mentioned that this policy only kicks in for large orders.
just passing this along in the event it helps someone, my credit card company like yours does not support a secondary address. what they can do (have done) is attach a memo to the account with the alternate shipping address. now I just tell the vendor to ask when they call for verification that the shipping address is in a memo and they need to specifically ask about that. so far it seems to work. 8)
I feel your pain… its very very must up!!
im trying not to put these as a Ad….
web call Newegg.com …Has some nices price for all type of pc.. atm im looking at nice 1Gb ram card for $134.. “not knowing what type of motherbroad you have…” Best part you can choose UPS or FedEx… 9 time out of 10 you get it on first or the secound day… i build my hole computer from that web site…
OK, felt the urge to comment here… A friend of mine ran a business, yes, selling adult toys. Was amazing how much profit there is there… anyways, one of the issues he encountered is credit card fraud. I’m not going into details of how the fraud occurs, but it is mind-numbingly easy to beat the system.
The credit card company holds the money, and the onus is on the merchant to prove that the person who received the item is the person who ordered the item. If one of 25 or so details don’t match up, the money is refunded and the merchant is screwed. To stay in business, they HAVE to have these policies. When you’re dealing with a $4 ebay item that’s one thing, but when you’re dealing with hundreds of dollars on computer equipment with a small profit margin, one fraud hit can take you days or weeks to recover from.
Amusing story since I had exactly the same problem with Apple when I ordered my IPod. Fortunately, my CC company was happy to add a new address. Unfortunately, whoever did it was incompetent and actually just changed the billing address something that took months to get them to fix right. Thanks Apple ;-).
Anyways, love the comics :D.
*sigh* I know someone else has already asked the same, but what exactly was the problem here? Frustration over the incident I can assume…however…I still don’t see how a company is at fault if all they are trying to do is stick to the books and cover their assets (pun intended). You told the guy who posted earlier:
“You didn’t really read my post. Go back and try again. My experience with their customer service wasn’t in anyway polite.”
Come again? I went back and read the post again…I still don’t understand how MemoryTogo is to blame for your inconvenience. I really don’t see specific examples of how they were rude or troublesome other than by following a policy that is not even necessarily listed in their Terms of Agreement, but that has to be followed nonetheless. Or was it because something came up…the guy didn’t call you back when the time came…and someone gave you a lame excuse (because any excuse probably wouldn’t have been good enough anyway…)?
Owning my own computer business, I can say that it is definitely good policy to make sure the shipping address is registered with the card company…and I would expect a large company to do the same (no matter how large an order…stuff adds up!), even if it means the customer having to go through a hassle now and then. Besides, it was really because your card company doesn’t keep a shipping address on detail…how could they have fixed that? Just because the other guys you always purchase from don’t require this, that doesn’t make them all right…does it? As someone has already stated, this policy is really on the way to becoming mainstream and looks to soon be required in online credit card transactions. I’m actually quite surprised you haven’t had the problem already since your card company doesn’t seem to want to work with you on the address issue.
And yes…I have experienced this kind of issue myself…
Just a few months ago, I had a problem with an order from amazon.com (due to having recently moved at the time). I entered my new shipping address, but because it had not been registered with my card company, I was forced to take a few minutes to call them and have the address added so I could complete my online order. That’s when I came upon the same problem with not being able to add a new address to the card…so I had to have the address attached as a note/memo (as stated by another forum user earlier). The card company was more than happy to offer this service…and the memo would be good for about a month or so or until the registration of my new address was complete (which replaced the old shipping address and would take 5 or 6 days or so).
Perhaps quite a bit of frustration…trust me, I know…but hardly anything that should cause MemoryToGo (or any company) to catch a bad rap. Especially if they were willing to give you options and not just cancel your order saying “sorry we can’t help you…have a nice day” *click* after listening to the “polite argument” that apparently Hawk, Ananth, and the rest of the office heard…how loud was that “polite argument” again?
If anything, let me know what card company you were using so I can make sure as to never hold an account with them. They should have at least done the memo thing or have given you some sort of alternative.
Possibly irrelevant from your perspective, however…
As an Aussie who travels to the US quite a bit on business, when I can I take advantage of the better prices in your neck of the woods. However, and probably understandably, I *almost always* run into this problem – of course, my billing address is in Oz, and the delivery address is a mate’s place in the US. Cue dramatic music, shock/horror, fraud alarm bells ringing loudly and much flapping of arms and gnashing of teeth…
I’ve found that smaller operators are easier to deal with on this (say, http://www.clickykeyboards.com) than the big operators who probably are swept up in servicing a flood of orders. Annotating my order in the Comments field noting that the billing & delivery addresses are different, inviting the business to call or email me if they have any hassles, and explaining a bit of backstory (I work for X evil multinational, I travel to the US lots, blah blah blah) all tends to help.
Some of the big guys (New Egg, Expedia, etcetera) are pretty good, but many can’t be arsed dealing with something out of the ordinary (ie: US-based purchaser) and many make that clear in their T’s & C’s.
No big deal, I end up using smaller companies and maybe I pay a few more bucks – but I reckon I’ve generally also had better service, so perhaps it all evens out in the end.
Cheers,
Cods
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