[TowerTalk] Re: Texas Towers Credit Card Practices

[TexasRF@aol.com]

This subject comes up frequently and here is the straight answer:

We have been subjected to every kind of credit card fraud and abuse you can 
imagine. We have found a system that stops it for a very high percentage of 
the time. We confirm the shipping address on every order that goes out. Our 
confirmation source is 1> previous customer, info on our network data base 2> 
customer is listed in FCC data base, also on our network 3> we call the 
credit card company and ask them to confirm the ship to name/address  4> if a 
new callsign we go to the WM7D data base, accessable thru www.texastowers.com.

Many times a customer will want to ship to his/her work address. This is 
where the rub comes in and where we have been defrauded in the past. We have 
actually had customers, hams included, that claimed they did not order or 
receive merchandise from us that we charged their card for. The bank then 
charges us back for the amount in question and we have to prove that we did 
deliver the merchandise. Even with a record of signature at the receiving 
end, the customer could claim none receipt and we are out the entire amount. 

If a customer wants merchandise shipped to his work address we ask that he 
call the card company at the 800 number for 24 hour customer service listed 
on the back of nearly every card and ask them to list the work address in 
their data base for merchant confirmation. This is a free call and usually 
takes a couple of minutes to do. Once we have confirmation, we retain the 
data and future orders are a snap.

I hope this makes sense and is useful to you.

Tnx/73 de Gerald, K5GW/Texas Towers

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