Problems with Google Checkout
 

Here is the text of an email I sent to GC. If anyone cares, I'll post their response when I get it:



Hi. I have been using Google Checkout throughout the past month because of the $10 off $30 discount promotion you have been running. However, there is a problem with the above order#, which I placed 2 days ago with Dvd Empire

I have been ordering merchandise from them for a long time, mostly because of how smooth they run their operation. Orders are confirmed via email within 10 minutes, and the product is usually packed and in the mail the same day. And they never charge my credit card until everything ships.

However, it has been 2 days since I placed the above order #, and I have not recieved a confirmation from them, or an answer to my inquiry(sent through Google Checkout) to check whether they actually got the order.

Since then, I have emailed them directly through their website and got an answer back within 10 minutes. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell me the status of my order, only that orders sent through GC "take a long time" to process.

This is not the first time I have had these problems. I have already had 3 orders cancelled and refunded this month because merchandise (which was in stock when I placed the orders) was backordered with no confirmed re-stock date by the time they got the orders from you.

That kind of delay and uncertainty is unacceptable to me, especially when you guys charge my credit card up front, so I am writing to tell you that I will no longer be using Google Checkout for online purchases.

You probably won't miss me, but you should address these issues for the sake of your other customers.

Thanks for posting the deal!

Yeah, I just got an email from them/buy.com that some things that were in-stock when I ordered when no longer available.

They're giving me refunds, but of course the $20 discount is the first thing to disappear. For instance, I ordered two $10 books and a $31 cd set (over $50 = $20 off). So then the cd set is out of stock/no longer available, and they refund me $11 (meaning I paid full price for the books). I wouldn't have bought the books full price in the first place. Ugh. Sucks.

BTW: your post should go in the store forum.

Besides being a little slow, I haven't had problems like that. Hope it gets resolved man.

I placed an order last Saturday, got confirmation of shipment on Wed... it better get here by this Sat, 1) because they're Christmas gifts and 2) I paid $5 for three-day shipping.

This should/will get moved to the Store Forum.

I've heard many bad things about Google Checkout. I'm glad I never used them. Once these GC deals end, there would be no reason to use GC and they now have all this CC info sitting around.

Paypal has such a monopoly that I am, uncharacteristically, willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt here and chalk it up to growing pains. For now.

That said, cgray, you need to bitch loudly to buy.com and google, worst case, refuse delivery (if the postman delivers it anyway, just make sure not to open the package and write "return to sender" on it and then put back in your mailbox or dump it into a blue-bin somewhere. And then do a charge-back on your credit card.

In cases of vendor error, you should not be penalized, at the very least they should amortize the $20 discount over the remaining order and ideally they would just apply it in full.

I don't understand how you could be having such a problem with GCO. I've placed a ton of these orders from 3 or 4 sources including DVDEmpire without any of the OOS issues you've encountered, even when ordering used titles from DVDPlanet. I checked my history and the total is 46 Google orders. Two or three orders had to be returned (damages or my error) and the rest proved to be fine. I'm sorry for your bad experience but I'm inclined to think that it's store specific.

i ordered CDs (no dvds in the order) from dvdempire and am having the same problem with the order. my dvd orders from dvdempire thru google checkout have all shipped quickly, but this one order seems to be in complete limbo.

on another note-
if i were a vendor, i'd put the lowest priority on these sort of orders over "normal" paying holiday orders...not that it's the correct thing to do. i'm not sweating the delay on these GCO orders with any vendor. if you do a lot of ordering thru a certain vendor, and you're used to that vendor's procedures- ADD 3 to 5 extra days to the usual order delivery time.

also, after this promo is over i'm gonna set up a new bank account up with a different bank (a lot closer to my new home) and get rid of the account i've been using for these sort of orders. my current card's been flinging around the online shopping cyber-realm far too long and i've allowed way too much demographic collecting with this GCO thing.

I'm happy for your good experience, but the fact remains that if I contact a vendor directly (via email) I get an answer immediately. If I contact them through GC's email system, I will not get an answer for days, if ever.

Obviously, either GC doesn't foward orders and other communications immediately or the vendors flag GC emails as non-priority.

I just get the feeling that Google's whole racket here is to charge credits cards up front and then hold onto the cash for a few days before initiating the order. It's a great business plan, just not one I'll be a part of anymore.

Looking at my orders through Google checkout, it's obvious this isn't the case. The retailer returns an order # immediately for me.

I recently placed an order for four items using the $20 off $50 promotion. A cd was later said to be unable for buy.com to obtain. Instead of $14.61 being credited to my card I was credited $5.64 which just happened to bring my total to $30 even. I contacted buy.com and they said they refunded the entire $14.61. I am still waiting for a reply from google checkout. If I get no response after Christmas I will just dispute the charge with Discover. I have used google checkout for a lot of purchases over the last few months. Once the promotions are over I'm sure I will never use it again.

Hmmm. I don't know how else to explain this. The order that initiated my whole contact (in above email) with GC in the first place is now 4 days old.

No confirmation, no contact, no shipping, no answer to my emails.

Yet GC has had my money for four days.

Also, when GC finally does refund me, it will take another 3 days for the credit to appear on my card.

I'm also having a problem with GCO. I placed an order with DVDPlanet on Dec 18th and it STILL hasn't shipped. Nothing. I've noticed DVDPlanet is slow to follow through on orders, at least with GCO, but this is ridiculous. So much for that even coming close to a Christmas delivery.

Just because it shows as "In progress" on your GCO purchase history doesn't mean it hasn't shipped yet.

I had a bunch of orders from planet- a few of them 10+ days old- that looked like nothing was happening with them. But for the past few days they've been arriving in a strange hodgepodge of partial orders, combined orders, OOS notices, etc. On several of them, I got the shipping e-mail *after* the order was delivered. I just keep stacking the packages in a corner, and hope it all tallies up in the end.

So while you won't get them for Christmas, they might at least be on the way.