[TowerTalk] Re: Texas Towers Credit Card Practices

[John Langdon]

This is also the practice of several high-end camera and video dealers,
too - you must confirm the charge amount and shipping address to the credit
card company before the merchant ships.  This is not because the merchant is
shaky - it is because they have so many problems with "charge backs".  You
can't expect the people doing orders worth $3K or more to use the same
credit card practices as when they ship CD's or other less expensive items.

I do think that merchants should only charge your card when they ship the
goods, and not before.

73 John N5CQ


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-towertalk@contesting.com
[mailto:owner-towertalk@contesting.com]On Behalf Of TexasRF@aol.com
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 7:49 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Re: Texas Towers Credit Card Practices


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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