To: The FJ55 Registry Cc: Land Cruiser Mailing , Lcool_usa@yahoogroups.com From: "Willem-Jan Markerink" Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 22:28:00 +0100 Subject: [lcool_usa] Re: UK shipping puzzle Reply-To: lcool_usa@yahoogroups.com On 31 Dec 2004 at 13:32, Les Flack wrote: > Hi All, > > A plea for help again. I placed an order with Spector during the sale > for a windshield rubber and a few other bits and pieces, as usual the > shipping costs stung a bit. But now another sting, unfortunately > Spector wont take credit cards for international orders any more due > to fraud, this adds a further 25GBP and $12 for the bank wire. > > Heres the plea, can anyone help with a cheaper way of getting the bits > to me? Heres the box and shipping details from SOR. > > Box 1 SOR to London E4 9HF > Weight 15 > Dimensions 15 X 15 X 6 > Parts $107.76 > Fedex Economy $111.99 > Handling $5.00 > Total $224.75 > > Bank wire charge 25 GBP > US Bank transfer charge $12 > > I'm not poor but this seems like an awful waste of money, I'd rather > give the bank wire money to the Tsunami fund! Try sending them cash, insured mail, multiple mails to spread the=20 risk if you want. Works fine with private individuals, companies might object (because=20 they have to trust the employee opening the snail mail). Fraud is one baffling lousy argument....once CC-holder & shipping- address match, the chance of fraud is 0.0000%. (but maybe they got shammed by (foreign?) buyers who used their CC- company to complain for no reason and retract the money?) -- Bye, Willem-Jan Markerink The desire to understand=20 is sometimes far less intelligent than the inability to understand [note: 'a-one' & 'en-el'!] To: From: "Hants White" Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:13:36 -0800 Subject: RE: [lcool_usa] Re: UK shipping puzzle Reply-To: lcool_usa@yahoogroups.com >> Spector wont take credit cards for international orders any more due=20 >> to fraud, this adds a further 25GBP and $12 for the bank wire. > > Fraud is one baffling lousy argument....once CC-holder & shipping- address > match, the chance of fraud is 0.0000%. > (but maybe they got shammed by (foreign?) buyers who used their CC- company > to complain for no reason and retract the money?) I've been a lurker for quite a while... This seems like a good opportunity to jump in. I've been an IT consultant for many years, and have hands-on experience with Credit Card transaction automation for bricks-and-mortar and internet-based businesses. CC fraud rings are very sophisticated. I've seen both forged cards and forged identification. They'll even ship to domestic, apparently legitimate, addresses that in reality are forwarders. Unfortunately, the CC companies are not very effective in detecting/blocking them for international transactions. Within the US, fraud is not as much of a problem because the merchant can cross-verify shipping address, CC billing address, card security code. With international transactions, most issuing banks and CC networks will NOT cross check this info, even if passed in to them by the merchant. The merchant gets his "approval code", thinks all is happy, and ships the product. The CC companies then just take the money out of his account if fraud is detected. The merchant has effectively no recourse. In one recent episode, the customer had purchased a stolen card number and card security code. They faxed front and back copies of a (forged) card with their (assumed) name, front and back copies of their (forged) identification card with their (assumed) name. The merchant dutifully input card number, CSC, name address, etc, received an authorization number, shipped the product. The merchant was notified 1 day after shipment that the card number had been stolen, and that they would be receiving no payment. The merchant tried to claim that they gave sufficient information to the CC company that the original authorization should not have been issued - no change. In this case, the Card Number and CSC and Name matched and were "valid" - but were stolen. The ShipTo address given by the "customer" matched their ID and was given to the CC network. The address was a physical address, but was NOT the address-of-record for the card. The CC network and/or issuing bank did NOT cross-check everything, and issued an authorization number anyway. The merchant was left without product and without payment. I can empathize with all sides... Big problem with no easy solution. Hants White Carlsbad, CA 2005 is Year of the Cruiser at the White House! :) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:21:45 -0600 To: Land Cruiser Mailing From: Barry Jarrett Subject: Re: [LCML] Re: UK shipping puzzle Reply-To: Land Cruiser Mailing At 03:28 PM 12/31/2004, you wrote: >Fraud is one baffling lousy argument....once CC-holder & shipping- >address match, the chance of fraud is 0.0000%. >(but maybe they got shammed by (foreign?) buyers who used their CC- >company to complain for no reason and retract the money?) no, it's not a lousy argument. cardholder information is damned hard for a merchant to verify w/o jumping through a whole bunch of "hold please" phone hoops. we've had a few cases of obvious fraud, and even then, just trying to verify the info took over an hour in each case, with multiple calls required, and sometimes the (foreign) issuing banks wouldn't even verify address info, only that such-and-such card was issued to so-and-so. the CC companies really don't give a crap about fraud at the small business level, because all they have to do is reverse charges. the small business eats the loss, the shipping, the CC fees, the chargeback fees, etc. no thanks. it's not worth it.