Key Bank and Prepaid CC's = AUUUHHRRRGG

[CharredPC]

I finally got around to placing my 120cm dish order this afternoon. I decided on going with http://www.eyeyinthesky.net . I really liked the look of the Patriot 1.2m recently purchased by rayydio, and they also have offset C-Band lnb's for a mere $69. From rayydio's pictures it looks like just the "Devo hat" we've been after, so I couldn't pass it up My order total came to $377.16 including shipping, according to the website. I whipped out my credit card and tossed in my info...

... and got a Billing Information Incorrect error. Ok, no biggie, it must think I need "N" instead of "North" and "St" instead of "Street" or some such thing. After some editing, I tried again. This time, I got a card declined error. ...huh?

I called up my credit card company. I had made sure $450 was available before trying to order, now I had $72 and change. The first order apparently went through, though it said it hadn't, and the second order was declined for insufficient funds.

I got a bit irritated and put myself into quite a bad mood over the next 30 minutes. I emailed both the tech support and order adresses on the website, and called the toll-free line, with no answer, just a machine. It being past 4:30pm here, I figured everyone must have left for the day. Patience isn't my strong point, particularly after making a much-wanted long-overdue purchase such as my MicroBUD setup. Just when I was getting ready to vent at my wife, the phone rang.

A nice gent whose name I unfortunately forget (Jay, perhaps) but deserves big kudos returned my call. Though in the car and on a cellphone, he listened to my problem and explained how the order/credit card proccessing works. He assured me that my order would be proccessed, and he'd email me my order number as soon as he got back to the office. While he was parking, we had an enjoyable conversation about dish construction, the recent Satellite Expo (which of course he and EITS attended), and upcoming products (which I won't spill about unless given permission, but suffice it to say they'll make many people here very happy ) I explained our MicroBUD project, and he was very interested to keep in touch and learn more about our results (told you that you started something big here, Cascade!). He told me about a guy in Eupore who successfully used a Torridal dish for DVB C-band! After we laughed at hackers and I mentioned how we strickly enforce a no-hack poilcy on the forum we use, he said "Is that SatelliteGuys?"

So, what could have turned ugly was smoothed out easily. I should really remember to write down names, so I know who to specifically thank.
I'll keep this thread updated with how it turns out and when I get my order, for possible customers' and curious folks' benefit.

 

[CharredPC]

Got an email from Jay (yes, that is his name!). Turns out the issue was an athorizenet error. They authorized the card, which locked out the funds for 24 hours. For some reason they didn't capture the funds, though, so my order didn't get placed. I called my credit card company to verify billing adress... I'll have "All of our representatives are currently busy. Please, stay on the line and the next available representative will be with you momentarily" repeating in my head all day now, must have heard it 40 times before they picked up. Not even some elevator music to break up the monotony, lol.

Credit card company says it's all fixed and won't flunk authorization again. Not that they'd explain why it did in the first place. Love these guys. Anyhow, I'm hoping the money is truly available after 5pm today, though I have no way of checking it unless I place an order and it's denied for lack of funds (seeing as how I found out yesterday "that department closes at 5pm, all we can do it cancel lost or stolen cards, sorry!"). Maybe I'll run out to an ATM and see if I can check the balance there... Either way, I've decided to call Jay directly and place my order with him instead of through the web. Hopefully then if it fails I won't have to wait 24 hours to try again

 

[sharris]

Murphy's law I guess. It never ceases to amaze me that when you really, really want something....something screws up and you have to wait. I hate it when that happens. Looking forward to the reviews.

 

[CharredPC]

Where's it at?

Posted 05-27-2005:

Sadoun will be introducing a new "Prime Focus" C/KU band COMBO LNB. It is an integrated feedhorn, voltage controlled 13/18V C/KU band LNBF. We will be testing the LNBF soon before releasing it to the market. The LNBF will have two F outputs (one for KU and one for C-band). So you will have to use a 2-way DiSEqC switch.

I just thought to let the Satelliteguys members know in advance.

Any word on this? There's at least two or three threads discussing the best way to use both C-band and Ku on a single dish. I'm trying to come up with a way to use my Invacom 0.3dB and the offset C-band lnb together, and it always comes back to the same thing... there is only ONE focal point on a dish. You can stretch it a bit, deal with signal loss and work in parrallel, but the bottom line is that if you want to get the most out of your dish, use a single lnb at the prime focal location. In my opinion, the only thing lacking in our MicroBUD setups is dual band compatibility. And no, I don't count using archaic 10-12' prime focus BUD co-rotor

Anything? Anyone? (echo, ehco, echooo....)

 

[CharredPC]

The saga (unfortunately) continues

Did I order my dish today? ...no.

Not only was the $377.16 NOT refunded to my card by authorizenet, but I now also have seven $1 charges under "Purchase at a Merchant." So far I've lost $384.16 on this, and it's still going. I'm not positive where the $1 charges are coming from, they might be bank-related. of course it's past 5pm again so I can't get an answer on that until tommorrow. I tried going to authorize.net and using their contact info; nope, they are closed too. They have an online chat support.... but you have to have a Merchant login to access it.

What's really frustrating is Jay's been great through all this. He called this afternoon and asked if I'd verified my funds were returned. At that point, I hadn't, but he asked I keep in touch so we could complete the order over the phone and avoid possible card issues. I just shot him an email asking if he had any pull or could do anything for me in regard to authorize.net; we'll see how that turns out. In the meantime, I have a really scary feeling that this is Cascade's Dish thread all over again.

God I hope not

 

[hubba]

Your link is bad. But i found it.

 

[CharredPC]

He said she said

Another update. Oh joy.

Got a prompt reply to my email to Jay at Eye in the Sky. He tells me the $1 charges are levied by my card's bank. I suspected that might be so, though I want them explained. Again, no news on that until normal bussiness hours.

Now Jay says my bank is the one whom will release the charges. Color me confused, when I talked with them yesterday, they said that $377.16 was successfully charged and gone off my card. If I wanted it back, I'd have to get ahold of the chargee (is that a word?) and have them reverse the funds. Jay points at my bank, my bank points at authorizenet. Jay says no money was transferred, my bank says it's all gone.

Tommorrow I begin playing phone tag again. Firstly to my bank, so I can be told the same thing as before; not our problem, money's gone, yadda yadda. At least I can question the repetitious erroneous $1 charges. And be told Oh Well. I'll eat the $7 loss if I can get the product I ordered Secondly I'll try and get ahold of authorizenet and hopefully not get pointed to yet another party; maybe Bill Gates is personally responsible, I was using Windows at the time of purchase (errr, non-purchase)....

 

[vj9999]

I know some places use $1 authorization as a fraud protection. Basically instead of authorizing your card for the full amount, they will authorize just $1 to verify that your CC info and name and address match are valid. If that is authorized sucessfully they will go ahead and authorize the full amount.

Authorization means that the money is just put aside and there are sufficent funds. Once they settle the charge, the actual money is taken of your account.

So in your case a single $1 authorization (not a charge where money is actaully taken from your account) would make sense. 7 $1 charges would only make sense to me if you tried submitting your order seven times.

 

[CharredPC]

Well, I figured some things out.

I called my bank and got a few answers. My brother-in-law who was staying with me stole my credit card and made the seven $1 authorizations on attempted purchases. That's a hell in itself we're having to deal with, but at least it brings us back to the initial problem.

The bank says that the $377.16, if it didn't completely go through, might return in four bussiness days. Not counting the initial attempted purchase day. Not counting weekends. So we're hoping for around Monday. According to the bank, authorizenet isn't listed anywhere on the purchase. It shows as a successful transaction with Eye in the Sky. Perhaps authorizenet uses EITS information. I'm going to try and make a call to authorizenet now and see if they can speed anything up.

Jeeez..... all I want is a 1.2m Patriot and an offset lnb

 

[GOsatelliteRob]

Credit card processors

Hi all, Rob from FTAdirect here.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents in regards to credit cards merchants and experiences with our site.
On VERY rare occasions, a customer will order and it will show that the customer has paid. The catch is that we did not receive the money, so the funds are in limbo with the merchant.
In this case, the merchant will credit back the customer, and can take 1-3 days. To speed up the process, we let the customer know our merchants number and they can call to speed up the process (and that does work).
Cheers.
Rob
ftadirect

 

[CharredPC]

Thanks, Rob!

I'm calling athorizenet right now. Do I definately need to know EITS's merchant number? I'll try and get it from them if so.

Edit/Update: The only contact information for authorizenet seems to be for Merchants. Their toll free number immediately warns you to have your Authorize.net login and merchant ID number ready. I'm on hold but this isn't looking good. Hrrrmm, there's a local Corporate office not 15 minutes away from me... maybe I'll go down there tommorrow and raise some hell if this doesn't work out

 

[CharredPC]

Got ahold of athorize.net. They said the merchant (EITS) should never refer customers to them. They work for the merchant, not for us. They said EITS can call my bank, explain they never recieved the funds, and fix the issue. Otherwise, the charges should "fall off" in some amount of time determined by my bank. My bank says maybe Monday. *sigh*

Now I'm writing up an email to Jay. According to authorize.net, he can give my bank a ring, sort this all out, and I can be ordering tonight. Well, tommorrow, since my bank's hours are already up for today (for doing anything useful, anyway). If anything MUST be done concerning authorize.net, Jay apparently must be the one to do it; he's the client, I'm not.

 

[CharredPC]

I sat here just now and reflected on this thread, and want to apologize.

EITS just emailed me back within minutes of my last post. They will happily call my bank and get the charges reversed so that I may order. They've been great throughout all of this, kept in touch and helped any way they could. My frustration at my bank, the delay, my eagerness to get the product, and inexplicable charges on my card have all been vented to a thread labeled "Eye in the Sky Testimonial/Experience." It would be more aptly named "listen to me whine and b!tch about a variety of issues, when I've hardly dealt with EITS yet." If you must judge Jay, Gandy, and the gang at EITS by this thread, read the first post and those that follow hereafter, once I get my product and have something substantial to report.

In the meantime, I'm having this thread closed and renamed. I'm looking forward to my new MicroBUD setup, and am sure it'll be on it's way to me by the weekend

 

[Cascade]

By request of OP, closed and renamed.

I've spoken to Jay from EITS in the past and he's one of the old school guys, definitely has a passion about what he does and is very much on our level.