UKNM: Internet and credit cards

[Chris Heathcote]

At 2:51 pm +0000 on 19/11/99, Jo Chipchase wrote:


>The joke was on me, as the ordering system  hung immediately after I 

>entered my cc number.  Two calls to the credit card company 

>confirmed, to my relief, that this time my card hadn't been debited. 

>However, I am reluctant to try either of these systems again !

>

>Has anyone had similar experiences?  Perhaps I'm jinxed with these things!


As Steve said, there are so many two-bit hacked-together e-commerce 

systems that problems are bound to occur.


The problem starts with the "only click this button ONCE" messages, 

then there's the "do not close this window, do not click anywhere for 

up to 5 minutes", in which time you're meant to cross your fingers, 

and pray to your monkey gods that the next screen will actually 

appear.


Add in clunky Java or JavaScript shopping carts, and there's no 

wonder that most shopping experiences end up with the user befuddled 

and confused.


Even if your order is accepted, there's still the problem that a lot 

of sites store the orders and print them out for operators to enter 

by hand. Human error is bound to increase the number of wrong orders 

and returns that have to be dealt with.


All that said, I try and buy everything on the Internet - travel 

tickets, CDs, books, whatever. I've probably spent 4-5 grand on the 

net over the last 2 years. The only credit card fraud was when a card 

had been used *before* I actually received it - some Internet 

shopping site had let scriptkiddies try out long lists of possible cc 

numbers without locking them out. Mine must have come up as accepted, 

and 180 pounds later, they dumped it. Natwest were incredibly helpful 

and refunded the money straight away.


c.

-- 

  It's against the rules to deliberately try to do it.  

  Much like winning the hundred meter mosey.

  http://www.head-newmedia.com       http://www.head-space.org 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

post new media vacancies for free

uknm-jobschinwag [dot] com

 				*******************

 sponsor the uk-netmarketing list and website, contact

saleschinwag [dot] com

 for more details.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/uk-netmarketing or

helpchinwag [dot] com