Quote:
Originally Posted by columbus
Good customer service? - those viewing this unnecessarily long thread will decide for themselves.
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I would say your situation sucks...and I think you did indeed stumble across a flaw in the international ordering system. I am not certain, I would need to re-read my merchant account terms, but it is possible that even if the transaction had been canceled you would still have been charged the fees by your CC company. I am not sure but I have had similar issues when selling internationally.
International selling, even for larger-ish companies like B&H can be somewhat risky for the seller, remember the buyer is always protected by the CC company the seller is really not. Sellers have rules we must follow in order to be covered by fraud protection and trust me here, it is NEVER in the favor of the merchant.
Here is a really silly example, I do not know about outside the US, but in the US any merchant who accepts credit cards cannot, I repeat CANNOT, require a minimum purchase to use the card. That means a customer can buy a $0.10 item with their CC and the merchant cannot refuse or they will risk not only losing their account but can, and this is the most likely result, their rates will increase. And again believe me here, the merchant card services are always looking for ways to charge the merchant a higher discount rate.
One single fraudulent international transaction can also have the same or worse results to the merchant. This is why many have what seem to be quite draconian restrictions when located in the US and shipping outside the US. Most are very willing to make exceptions for customers who have an established purchase history and may have special needs on an order.
And YES I know you likely have dealt with some merchants willing to ship anywhere, but likely they are already paying maximum fees with some merchant card service which caters to high risk clients because that is the only place they could get covered.
Something you should consider is working with your card provider to setup a verified shipping address on your account. This is indeed possible and vendors can ship safely to those addresses.
Last I would ask again have you called Harry? Or asked him to call you to at least have a civil conversation about this...I have spoken with him about a tough situation where I ordered a lense which I had overnighted but something about that copy and my camera simply did not mesh well. So I had to return it BUT I also had to have it that weekend and we were already on Thursday night. So Harry called me Friday with a proposed solution and B&H ate the extra cost of Saturday delivery as long as I paid for the overnight on the 2nd lense. I was very happy with the arrangement and once they received the RMA lense I received a full refund including the original shipping. To help things I decided the right thing for me to do was return the lense via Priority Mail on Friday so it would arrive to B&H on Monday (I am in California but get 2-day delivery on PM to NYC area) I paid the return shipping so we could get the refund processed right away, which happened.
But this all came about because we communicated and I accepted that problems happen and Harry was doing what he could to make things work. He made me a happy customer, and we are not talking about a very expensive lense as lenses go but it was crucial for my work. Together we figured out a solution.
So, while I completely appreciate your situation if you are still not happy, and in a way I would not be either, call him or visa-versa to figure out a way so you can order from them. Maybe even a letter from your credit card provider/bank...I don't know the ins and outs of such things in the EU.
So, you can choose to be angry or understand this kinda crap happens every now and then, but know this, when you really need them B&H is the sort of company that will find a way to make it work. What I see here is some discussion "face to face" is needed. If you can't work a deal maybe if it is OK with Harry, I'll step up and PayPal you the $25 in cash and you send me the card...hehehehe....but dang it you pay the postage!!
Just trying to lighten things up is all but am serious too. Hope it all works for you.