Not complaining, looking for clarification

Hi AUSCPT....Others have had similar concerns.   Here's the thing....DS needs to verify the account is legit and not stolen.  Mailing a package to a different address than billing address is how lots of people get fraud purchases on their cards.  I have had to cancel a credit card for just that reason.  Their added forms is a definite pain but I feel needed.  With all due respect and not directed at you, but if I had my way useing a cc and sending to different address should be stopped, this would fix most fraud.

Edited by bprat22 - 04 Feb 2012 at 12:42pm

Originally posted by kane860 I use to work in the credit card processing industry and they are simply doing this to avoid any chances of a charge back if the transaction actually turned out to be fraudulent.  When dealing with a transaction of a few thousand dollars, they are just trying to cover themselves because if they ship the computer to a customer and the transaction ends up being charged back due to fraud, DS will lose both the money and the computer.    Although this is probably the reason why they are requesting all of this info, I think this request may be a little excessive though.  Perhaps there is another reason for requesting so much information, I cant tell you based on the information you provided so I dont know.  But I definitely understand your frustration and concern.

Understood, but my frustration may lead to my cancelling this particular order. At one time we had multiple homes, still have a couple...We found out long ago that we needed to consolidate to one billing address, too many problems otherwise. We haven't dealt with a refusal to ship to an address which is different from our billing address, ever.

Yep, same as bpratt and kane said, it's annoying but needed. We do the same thing for big purchases at my work, we make the customer provide proof that the purchase is legit.

Some people tell us that it's our job to call the bank and verify it but that's actually against the law. Privacy laws are very strict these days and your bank or credit card company can only speak to you the card holder. By law you the card holder must provide the proof to the retailer. For an in store purchase it's easy because they can see your ID, the paper work DS is asking for is just their way of doing that. We do the exact same thing, we make the customer fax copies of their ID and credit card as proof it's really them.

DS mainly deals in only $1000+ purchases, with the exception of the occasional minor upgrade, so they do things a little different then say some place like Amazon where you may only spend $50-$100 on at a time. DS is also a much smaller company then some big huge retailer so they have to do more to protect themselves and their customers.

A massive retailer like Amazon probably spends more money paying their legal department each month then DS does on the salary for their entire company. It is totally normal, and is down right required, for any business to have to get verification when a persons information does not match.

Identity theft and fraud costs people tens of billions, yes billions, of dollars each year. The most recent number I could find showed in 2008 it was $31,000,000,000 (figured I'd show all those zeros). As those numbers keep getting worse retailers keep having to do more to prevent the fraud.

People will always get their information stolen, usually do to carelessness, but if the retailers do their part the thieves won't be able to get away with it as easily.


Edited by jmaster299 - 04 Feb 2012 at 1:21pm

Originally posted by darbebo i work in customer service for other companies, and while on one hand, I wish you would order from DS, on another hand, it annoys me when people explains what the situation is and just ask for your "understanding", the customer still wants to have the last say by saying "May lead to my cancelling this order". I mean, is it some kind of a threat? i mean, if you are going to cancel, cancel, if you're not, you're not. no point of "saying it out loud" as if that statement will make the company change its mind (I mean...it could just cuz you give it "passive negative publicity"). o well. good luck

People use that line at my work all the time when demanding a discount that they do not deserve. "I don't ever pay full price, refund my shipping and give me 20% credit or else I'll cancel my order". They like to follow that up with threats to dispute the charges (which is 100% illegal) if we don't give them what they want.

But the OP appears to just be expressing his frustration and not fishing for an exception or discount. He just seems to want to know if this is normal since it's new for him, but I know exactly what you mean.

My company gives their service associates a lot of authority to issue discounts and compensation and our customers abuse the hell out of it. I'm in the department that reviews every one of those discounts and compensation and we report customers to management for abuse all the time.

People who are found to be abusing discounts or compensation get a letter in the mail telling them that we will no longer do business with them and their info, any and all addresses and credit card numbers used on any previous order, gets flagged in the system. Any order they attempt to place will be stopped and cancelled.


Edited by jmaster299 - 04 Feb 2012 at 1:29pm

DS has excellant tech support.   I'm guessing if they opened 24/7 the prices would be less attractive.      If you need a Pc, then DS is the right place to go.    Good luck and hope you do order.

Originally posted by darbebo i work in customer service for other companies, and while on one hand, I wish you would order from DS, on another hand, it annoys me when people explains what the situation is and just ask for your "understanding", the customer still wants to have the last say by saying "May lead to my cancelling this order". I mean, is it some kind of a threat? i mean, if you are going to cancel, cancel, if you're not, you're not. no point of "saying it out loud" as if that statement will make the company change its mind (I mean...it could just cuz you give it "passive negative publicity"). o well. good luck

Some kind of a threat? You obviously live in a far different world from mine...I posted my concerns, and where they may lead.

No, I don't make threats.

Originally posted by jmaster299 There is one thing to remember when considering both of your issues about needing to provide the paperwork and DS not being open on the weekend, DS is a small company. To help with that the owner, Alex, responds to e-mails and the forums all the time on nights and weekends when ever he has time. That right there should show you how small of a company DS is when the owner of the company responds directly to e-mails and forum posts on a daily basis. Good luck getting a direct response from someone like Michael Dell.As I mentioned before it's not the same as some big retailers like Amazon. Big retailers can afford a higher degree of risk, hell they specifically set money aside in their multibillion dollar budgets to cover loss due to fraud. They also have millions of dollars to spend on a legal team that can actually go after the people who try to rip them off.As far as being 20 miles from a fax machine I find that hard to believe. Any Fedex Office (formerly Kinkos), UPS store or other shipping service will have fax services. Any local check cashing place or currency exchange will offer fax services. The service counter at your local grocery store will offer fax services. Even a drug store like Walgreens will often have copy and fax services. So unless you live in a cabin in Alaska there is a fax machine some place near by that you can use. You should also be able to scan those documents and e-mail them or scan them and use one of the hundreds of on-line faxing services that are out there. You talk about owning multiple homes and making all these big purchases so it's not unreasonable for a retailer to assume you have access to either a fax machine or a scanner.

We are glad to have the info about Alex and the size of the company. We also very much like to support American businesses, and particularly small businesses.
However, in terms of our access to a nearby fax or scanner... No,we truly do not have it. We live in Iowa. And in Iowa we live in the country. Why we do not use our country address as our billing address is a long story. But the short version is that it keeps our life simple.
In terms of having two homes (and therefore being likely to own our own fax or scanner), we didn't convey that to the person who took our order.
On the down side...
We hung up the phone yesterday feeling concerned about fraud and identity theft at the DS end of things. The person whom we spoke with took our info, but wouldn't take our order without asking that we provide even more info! We feel better knowing that it is a legitimate business with happy customers. Just hope that they have good security procedures in place....
The lack of tech support on evenings and weekends is also a downer, because that is when we have free time to deal with computer problems, but we can probably manage.
Thanks for your input!

AUSCPT...now that things have died down a bit, I really feel that a ODE purchase would be good for all,DS and most importantly you. I have a ODE and love it. I have owned many rigs from numerous companies and this beats them all.    I understand your frustration and concerns. If you fell uncomfortable then obviously go elsewhere.   But, I think you would find the people on this forum to be helpful, outspoken but unique. DS does go the extra mile to help.   Are all things perfect..NO. but I challenge anyone to find better anywhere else. I hope you do join our community.

Edited by bprat22 - 04 Feb 2012 at 4:31pm

When I ordered my ODE3 my shipping address was not the same as my billing addressI was sent all the fourms I needed by email and filled them out and scanned them and emailed them to DS all in less than three hours.  And to makes sure there would be no more delays I called my CC company to let them know about my purchase from DS and the cost. In less than 10 days I was opening that BIG gaint BOX

Thank you everyone for the support, here's a link to that actual document: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/CCform.pdf

 

 

Edited by Alex - 04 Feb 2012 at 5:34pm

Nice   Keep us posted and when you get it, we love comments and pics.

Edited by bprat22 - 05 Feb 2012 at 6:19am

Originally posted by AUSCPT Thanks, Alex. We of course have seen and read the contents of the form. And we commend you for achieving such a loyal clientele. Based on the comments in this forum (at least the reasonable ones!), I think we will probably go through with the purchase. But it will be simpler for us just to get a money order and mail it to you, which we will do on Monday. We are of course disappointed by the further delay that this will cause, but deferred gratification also builds character....right? Nancy signs her name so many times that the signature on her passport and her credit card scarcely resemble one another, so it wouldn't make you happy anyway. When you get into the office on Monday, google her. She is a pretty impressive techie geek herself. Check out the video that they made when she was awarded the UCSF medal, for example. Maybe she will eventually join the DS gang for her home workstation eventually as well!

Sounds great! Glad to see the awesome stuff she is doing.

Originally posted by Alex Sounds great! Glad to see the awesome stuff she is doing.

Glad you liked it, Nancy pretty much pioneered the field of brain imaging, and utilized it to study mental illnesses, primarily Schizophrenia.

And, she needs a quality workstation...Looking for advice re the workstation.

Originally posted by bprat22 Nice   Keep us posted and when you get it, we love comments and pics.   Just watched the video....  Now that's what the world should focus on.

bprat22:

I missed your post, so you watched the video...Cool. You saw what rural Iowa looks like, and our farm. I believe that a pic of Nancy receiving the National Medal of Science from Bill Clinton was in there as well.

Edited by AUSCPT - 06 Feb 2012 at 6:44pm

This is a issue that makes sense, and at the same its a pain in the butt.

Edited by ironmb - 07 Feb 2012 at 9:48am

I do want to take a moment and thank you @ironmb for recommending us to your co-workers and friends.