Issues with MilestonePC

A couple days ago, I had my mind set on puchasing a Asus W3J from the milestone PC site. I had heard goog things about milestone, and decided to use them as a reseller. But the first couple of orders did not go through completely. I was always stuck with a pending order, unable to change any information, and thus pepetually in a state of confusion and disbelief.

I got a email stating:
Ship to different address:

First, the billing address in the order must be the credit card statement billing address, otherwise, the order cannot be processed.

Second, we have no problem to ship to another address / person, but If pay by credit card and ship to a different address / person with the credit card billing address / person, the card holder needs to call the credit card company to add the receiving address / person as an alternative address for shipping in the credit card info database, after that, we need the credit card company’s phone number ( at the back of the credit card ) to verify this permission. If credit card company says: Yes the owner allows shipping to that address, then it will be OK.

We need to verify this permission before we can ship out, please have this done ASAP.

I have sent them the information in hopes of getting a reply and a change in my status as "pending" to no avail. I have called their store on several different occasions with no reception. I live in oregon and since milestone US is founded in California, there is no time difference.

I am now wondering what I should do. If anyone has had similar problems, or knows anything about this situation please tell me.

 

The part about the credit card is normal for every mail order / online store I've dealt with. It says very clearly in there that you need to contact your credit card company and add the shipping address. This is to prevent stolen credit cards from being used to ship things to the thief. There isn't much MilestonePC can do until you get the shipping address added with the credit card company.

 

If you are having trouble ordering then contact MilestonePC directly and I'm fairly sure they will be willing to help you figure it out, you are offering to drop a wad of cash in their lap...

Milestone can be contacted here, I'd assume, toss em and e-mail or PM if you can't go through the phone.

EDIT: Pointless sarcasm which was a product of my sleep-deprived mind removed. Sorry for any offense, I didn't mean to be an asshat.

 

Completely normal. Newegg does the exact same thing. What do you mean by calling and getting no reception? Nobody answered? I've called several times during normal business hours and always gotten someone. If you you call during normal business hours, I guarantee someone can help you figure out what's going on and have things sorted out very quickly.

~ Brett

 

I can't tell if the OP's first language is English, so let's make this simple just in case.

1) Call your credit card company and add your shipping address as an alternative address. While on the phone with the credit card company, verify that your billing address is correct and is the same one you gave Milestone.

only after that,

2) Call Milestone and explain that you did these things. Have your order number ready if they gave you one. If they don't answer, email them with the same information.

If that fails, look up one of their posts here. Click on their name and then click on "send a private message". Tell them you've been trying to contact them and give them your name and phone number.

Really, that should work.

 

does this really need a forum post?

I find it encouraging that companies use these security measures, just in case my CC ever got stolen.

 

I dealt with Milestone to buy the extended warranty on my A8JS and will deal with them again for a bluetooth dongle. Every time I've called the Canadian location I had no problem reaching someone except once -- which I called the New York location for and had quick and easy answers given to me.

Are you sure you called the right number? They even have an AOL or MSN (can't remember which) contact which works..

 

I purchased from MilestonePC and had my order shipped to me at work. Prior to placing the order, I emailed my credit card company and asked to have my work address listed as an authorized shipping address. I got an email back a few hours later telling me that the address had been added and then I placed my order. I didn't have any problems with the authorization on the card.

As mentioned above, call your credit card company, add the address and verify your billing address. After this is done, email or call Milestone. The longest I had to wait for a response by email from them was a day. For everything else, they were very, very quick to respond.

Good luck.

 

I have my online orders shipped to different addresses than my billing addresses all the time, without any issues or having to contact my credit card company. When did this become so "common"?

 

I agree. Outside people in ebay who use paypal and and only ship to the confirmed address concept, no one has ever prevented me from shipping something to an alternate address. I mean, I ship gifts all the time to friends and family, sometimes even outside the US without problems.

So this is definitely not common when it comes to most online resellers.

However, I dont know why this was posted here in this forum. Every merchant has the right to define his own policy. Just talk to him or email him, and if you cant reach common ground, MilestonePC is not the only ASUS reseller in the US or Canada.

 

I'd rather have online merchants like Milestone charge me in this way that way I know no one can spend two thousand dollars of my money on a laptop for themselves and have it shipped to their own house... Not that I intend on having my card numbers stolen but it gives me one extra level of confidence (and a reason to take a half day at work to make sure someone was there to pick it up and some extra time to play before class).

 

An example of a large retailer which does this is Newegg.

From Newegg:

~ Brett

 

We also so this and let me explain in simple terms why this is done. It's done for our security and yours. If your card was stolen and someone used your billing information and then requested it sent somewhere else, if we shipped there without it being an "authorized ship to" address, the credit card can refuse payment. Considering as a merchant we have much more to lose than the customer, it's done much more for our security. However, it's certianly in the best interest of both parties. IF the customer refuses to do this (it is a simple procedure to just call up your CC and add) but, it simple wouldn't get processed. Either the customer simply doesn't wish to waste his or her time - in which case - why should we as the merchant be wasting ours... or it'll be considered fraud and just cancelled anyway.

The problem here is that a few years ago the CC companies told us merchants that this is not 100% required to ensure payment.... As a consumer with a CC... I know they certainly didn't send out letters to me telling me that merchants are going to be requiring this.... It's just a matter of the CC industry screwing with all of us!

 

It's interesting that each merchant has different requirement. I think sometimes they have to comply with their credit card vendor's policies in order to get the least percentage taken out of the total purchase.

When I ordered from powernotebooks.com, they called me and told me my credit card didn't go through because my phone number wasn't a match. I was kinda surprised because I've had the same phone number for more than a year and bought furniture and other items with my card with no problem. When I called the credit card company, it turned out to be true that they had a phone number that hadn't been valid for 18 months. I was actually glad that powernotebooks caught this error. If there is any strange activity on my card, at least now the company has my correct info.

 

When I sell stuff on eBay, I only ship items to people's registered address. That way they can't write me later and say they didn't receive the product, when UPS clearly states on their site that it was received.

 

There seems to be no physical addresses, faqs and other details on the milestonepc.com website..

 

Yeah, I noticed when pricing out the G1/V1 on different sites, that milestone has no return policy that I could find and I even went to google to try to search for it that way.

All I have is a ? next to the price. That sort of stuff should be easy to find, since there are a lot of vendors to choose from and most people are more impatient about finding things or sending emails than I am.

 

Of course, maybe an hour after I made my original post, I got a call about the laptop I purchased last night for my friend because the bill-to and ship-to addresses are about 100 miles apart. The company I ordered from (RK Computing) was very understanding about our situation and pleasant to deal with. So far this seems like a minor inconvenience at best. I definately can't knock a company for trying to protect themselves and their customers.

 

Let's put it this way.... you consumers out there not to consider it as more time or anything else on your side.... and look at it on the merchant's side. If someone stole your card, you as a consumer may not think that's a big deal because you'll get your money back... but you know why you get your money back? It's not because the credit card company is nice, it's becasue they take it back from the merchant for precisely the reason of shipping to an address that wasn't listed with the credit card company. Now, a company that doesn't do a lot of sales like this, or may be newer, may not have had the chance to get absolutely screwed yet.... let's call them "fraud virgins".... We got hit about 4-5 years ago for about 8 grand in one month. That doesn't seem like a big deal until you consider it's more than a lot of people make in a month.... try losing that much. Fraud is a huge deal... HUGE... not just in this industry, but notebook computers are smaller and worth a lot of money. Most people think the "good places" that ship your stuff right out will ship the order before finding out it's bogus... So it's one reason we've put a lot more measure in place. Most stuff still gets out right away, but we won't question holding up an order for a few days or even voiding it out if there is any issue we can't resolve.... it's just not worth it. If one notebook sale turned out to be bogus and it looked that way, but you still sent it out.... you'd need to sell a dozen more just to break even for the loss. In some industries where margins are a lot higher and product values are a lot lower... it doesn't really matter... sell to everyone and acccept the occasional loss....

 

My dad faces similar issues with the business he runs (not computer related). Your opinion on shipping to any random address someone with the credit card and expiration date asks for may change when it's quite literally your money being taken away (and in the case of laptops, $1500+ at a time). We're not talking HP with $40 trillion in sales last year, but small business people who have rent and bills due and have a tough time writing off thousands of dollars.

It's an inconvenience to the consumers caused by people commiting fraud, not because the ma-and-pa shops you want to support are ran by bad people.

 

http://www.milestonepc.com/canada/contact_us.php

But really, this number should work:
1 - 888 - 899 - 5009

 

I think I get what you're saying... but a small shop of 10 people, or a big corp monster of 10,000 people.... losing $2,000 is still somebody's paycheck.... whether it be for a day... or a week.. or a month.


What most people don't understand is how bad fraud is. Everyone once and while legit orders get caught in our fraud protection software, but 99.9999% of the time it's because the credit card company actually has the wrong information on file.... but I can easily say that the last time I got an update at the end of last year - 2/3 of all attempted orders that come through our site are fraudulent and automatically voided. Before we added some of these steps, our sales guys manually had to sort through all of these and it took up quite a bit of time. Evne in that case, to inconvience one customer because their legit information doesn't match up is really just small potatoes anyway.... All customers rant and rave about how much of an investment a notebook is (that's normal), but when it comes to something like this when we're talking about security and fraud and what not.... it seems most of those same people are like - "ship it to my cousins house and just leave it at the door"... You'd think for such a big investment, you wouldn't get people requesting that.

By the way, while we're on the subject on security and everything else.... Every notebook that leaves here goes out with a signature of the recipient required. That's another thing that the credit cards require..... it doesn't mean companies do it though. We charge the full amount of shipping - w/ full insurance and signature required fees for the benefit of everyone.... you start to remove those options and yes, shipping becomes much cheaper... doesn't mean it's in the best interest of the consumer.