Company never charged CC, now they want the money?
 

So I buy the laptop listed here http://slickdeals.net/f/3538706-A...-Home-308?
3 months later they call saying they never received my payment. I got the laptop on time, and I can NOT see where they charged me on my CC statements! I would like to pay for it if I do actually owe them for it, but I don't want to double pay either, where should I start? I am also wondering if they can just charge me now, or do they need my permission since it purchased so long ago on 11/11/11?:confused:

OK fine pay it - make sure your CC was never charged, otherwise tell them it's their problem (e.g. you shouldn't have to pay any type of penalty or fee for late payment).

This happened to me once with an insurance payment - I payed them 6 mo in full (nearly $1k), printed out the confirmation then 2 months later got a nastygram "your insurance will be cancelled..... for nonpayment". WTF? I called them and told them it's their fault they didn't bother to actually charge the card, not mine.

You need to pay the charge. Look through your statements and verify that your card was not charged.

Did you pay with a virtual account number? Those are usaully only valid until end of the next month.

Really? How hard is it to look back at your credit card transactions?

What laptop, you never got a laptop from them. :D

Don't pay it and tell them to sue you if they want the money so bad.

he will lose

did...did a mod seriously delete my post about the laptop thing? I was being crass...jesus.

nope, not in a small claims court.

A bit naive you are. The buyer has a duty to pay for the product. The seller provided the product and for whatever reason never charged the buyer. That does not relieve the duty of the buyer to pay for the product (prior to statute of limitations expiring).

I imagine this is how it would go down:

Seller: We had a system malfunction that did not charge our customer's accounts when the product shipped. We have asked our customer to pay for the product we shipped and they received on x date.

Buyer: It's not my fault they never charged my card.


Yup great defense you have there.

Just pay it up and check that they havent charged you yet. As for the post above it might be hassal and a long run, but your taking a risk they might let you go (I mean think about it going to court paying the fees etc will be a long process and money). If I were you I just pay it even if they took you to court if they have records of the transaction and the item being shipped you will lose and make matters worse.

if you didn't sign for delivery, say you never got the item.

you didn't complain because you were never charged :nod:

If you dont pay theyll send you to collections for the next several years youll be getting calls from a collections agency AND youre credit score will be hit. If you want to buy a car or a house in the future this could cause a lot more money in interest. Just pay the bill and try to get a gift card or something out of it. Lot of bad advice in this thread.

offer to pay, but ask for a freebie!!! laptop bag, mouse, etc.. , doesn't hurt to ask - this is a bit of hassle for you to mess with, they can throw you a bone

Actually deny everything. Its not your responsibility to make sure they charge you for an item. You conducted the transaction and at the time it was shipped they should have charged. If they didnt thats not your fault, what if you now dont have the money in the bank to pay for it.

If they try and charge you simply dispute charge you never made a purchase on the date they posted a charge end of story.

Wow, always sad to see how low some people's morals are.

An item was purchased and the retailer delivered it. Their only mistake was they delayed in billing, some people might see that as a benefit :)

Seriously... what is wrong with you...that is fraud. The buyer has a duty to pay for the item purchased.

Agreed!

3 months ago he had saved money to buy the item now he doesnt havethe money to pay for that item. He isnt buying it now he bought it 3 months ago. If any company tried to put a charge on my card without me implicitly allowing it at that time i wouldnt be very happy.

Is it fraud when they charge me the wrong price at a grocery store. I dont ever see a grocery store call me and say . Those bagels we overcharged you for 2 months ago, we will credit your card back the 60 cents.

We could question your ethics and morality if you ever took advantage of a price mistake aswell but Hot Deals is full of them or using a voucher/ coupon that wasnt intended for your use and the list goes on. He didnt commit fraud because he didnt have intention to not pay for the item when he bought it.

What laptop, you never got a laptop from them.

I don't care if he has the money or not to pay for it now as it is irrelevant. What is relevant is the product he negotiated to purchase was shipped to him and his duty is to pay for the said product. The company clearly had a glitch and therefore not only does he have an ethical responsibility he has a legal obligation to pay for the merchandise.

For the fraud I was referring to the point that you brought up about doing a chargeback. He in fact is indebted to the company.


As for your bagels that is a separate issue, that is a mispricing issue but I would argue that you are agreeing to the price when checking out and therefore that is the negotiation not the price necessarily on the shelf. Nonetheless there are now many consumer laws to protect this sort of behavior (that is if the consumer happens to catch it).

WOW. That is a ridiculous and idiotic rationalization for why you wouldn't pay the bill. Scampsters name says it all IMO. LizardSlayer, I pray that you ignore Scamp and the other just plain stupid advice in this thread and instead LISTEN to Pirates, afratki, and Dr J and pay the bill. Seriously. You received a product from a company in exchange for compensation to them. You owe them the money. Just check your prior statements (even though I understand that may be a hassle to you) and verify that you were not previously charged for the item, and then pay for the product. Any excuse about not having the money available to pay the bill is a piss-poor one as you should have set aside the money for the purchase when you made it. Just because one isn't charged immediately does not mean one will not be charged later. And if you always remember that, and if you stick to the rule of only purchasing what you can pay for at the time of purchase, you'll do better financially in your life than the rest of these dumdums advising you to contest the purchase.

P.S. This lack of morality I see in this thread (not necessarily from the OP, but from others) saddens me. This is partly why America is being surpassed by other nations. /EndOfRant

Can you direct me to the statistics that compare the morality of different countries

The lack of intelligence in the quoted post saddens me.

Its the companies responsibility at the time that the purchase is shipped to process the transaction. He isnt stealing the same way he isnt stealing if he finds they didnt charge him $1.56 for the M&Ms he bought at the grocery store. He needs to drive right back to that grocery and pay them for it.


Morality has nothing to do with it maybe ethically yes but he didnt make the mistake did he.

Its like the dentist in California that 3 years ago i had treament with and recently tried to charge me for a procedure because they found the paper work behind a filing cabinet and had forgotten to make a claim with the insurance company. The insurance company wasnt paying it because firstly we no longer had insurance with them and secondly the dentist had let too much time pass. Do you seriously think I should now be responsible for an $1800 bill.

Alright brah step down from the soap box. This is slickdeals after all, if I was looking for somewhere to improve my ethics and morality this would be the last place I would come. Any true slickster knows the best deals, the ones that really count, are only had with complete disregard to morality and ethics.

Sounds more like you got an interest free 90 day loan.

Hells yeah. ACE CASH EXPRESS would have charged you $who knows what for that privlidge.

SOL in California is 4 years, so basically yes (not you though, the insurance company is responsible for those charges). But for a 3 years old $1800 bill in CA, no one will bother going to court to pursue the claim, small claim court or not.

Back to OP, 3 months is not really that old, they probably will put a claim in your credit report or sell the "debt" to some collection agency. If you have time, you can try to argue with them (with threat of returning the item), you may get a lowered charge.

The OP is really asking if there's any way to avoid/reject/deny the charge.

Makes more sense now right?

Actually the OP isn't asking that. The OP is very upfront about saying that if he actually owes the money he wants to pay but doesn't want to double pay for the product.

Sounds more like the OP got a free computer ;)

If you bought the laptop from them and they never charged your CC, it doesn't matter if it was 3 months later or 1 year later. You are still responsible for the payment. Even if you closed out the CC, they could still come after you and ask your CC bank to put the charge through. I know because it happened to me once. There is no way for you to get out of this and it will go to collections if you don't pay. I'm actually suspicious of why you would even post this message unless you were looking for a way to get out of paying this? How hard is it to look through 3 months of CC statements? Seriously!

Actually the OP said
"I can NOT see where they charged me on my CC statements! I would like to pay for it if I do actually owe them for it, but I don't want to double pay either, where should I start?"

So, I guess the OP's original post doesn't make sense and is contradictory since he must obviously know it wasn't paid for?

So basically, OP is either looking for a way out of paying for the laptop, or just looking for advice on what to do.

Advice on what to do (ethically/morally/blah blah blahbally) - Look through your statements, try to find a charge that matches the amount of the laptop, and if you can't find it, pay the company (pretty unlikely they would say you owe them money if you already paid them, and by some miracle you also can't find the charge on your card).

Advice on not paying - Tell them you never received the laptop. They won't take you to court because it's not worth their time/money.

As for those saying "it doesn't matter if he has the money now or not," it actually does matter. I plan my financial future based on money I have now and money I expect to have in the future. If OP thinks he has an extra $1000 (or even $10, the amount doesn't matter), he might make a purchase he wouldn't otherwise make. He might spend spend all of his money, and have only $2 to his name (family emergency maybe?). Now, because of some company's mistake, he's screwed up his entire financial future?

A laptop might seem like a small purchase to some, but there are many people that consider it a major purchase. An major unexpected expense can be a big issue to a lower-income person/family. When you buy a product, you expect that the company will charge you for the product at the time of purchase. If they don't, that's their fault. What if this was a car? Does it matter then if you have the money or not?

Call your CC company and make sure you weren't charged, once you verify that you weren't, pay the man.

Then I guess you don't plan well because if you did plan you would have known to have that money set aside to pay for said item...ergo it's a bad argument.

QFT. OP should just call his credit card company, confirm he was never charged and pay up. Saves a lot of headache in the future. Once he pays, its done and over with.

They actually have no right to charge you anymore, they could lose their merchant account if they do charge you and you file a chargeback. I would however make sure they didn't charge you in the past and then pay for the item.

So the OP is a veteran Slickdealer who's aware of the price down to the penny of every item they buy but suddenly can't figure out how much was charged to their credit card for the laptop?

You infer way too much. The OP listed one item not every item (probably pulled it up from an email with the order).

How you infer the worst in people is beyond me but I don't believe that was the OP's intent as the OP clearly stated otherwise.

agreed, even if you aren't a veteran slickdealer all you have to do is pull your monthly statement from the past three months ctrl+f price or storage name and bingo. I doubt it takes more than 30minutes

This is one of the weakest arguments I have ever heard. The entire purpose of credit is "buy now, pay later." By your logic, if an individual can no longer afford the purchase they made on credit when the bill comes, they should be released from their obligation to pay. Do you seriously not realize how ludicrous that sounds?

This is 100% wrong. The merchant delivered the goods and the buyer has an obligation to pay.

That wasnt what was said go back and reread it. Financially responsible people only buy stuff on a creditcard to rack up points, get the bonus for having gotten that card and pay the balance at the end of that month. Morons carry balances from month to month.

He bought an item for a specific amount of money because he knew he would have that money at the end of the month to pay off the card. After that month the money vanishes into other bills or purchases that might come up from simply living.

If a company overcharged you for something. They wont go back 6 months later and give you money back unless you raise holy hell. Its not OPs problem to sort or figure out its the merchants. Why does a charge only stay pending for a certain length of time. ? Ever try getting Dell to refund you when you are overcharged ?

This is still the most asinine argument I have ever read. It means the fiscally responsible people you are referring to aren't fiscally responsible at all.

ok let me simplify this for you

A fiscally responsible person only buys items when they can afford to pay for them. At the time he had the money to buy the item. He didnt order it 3 months later he ordered it at the time and had the money at the time. His financial situation may be alot different now to what it was 3 months ago.

He didnt order items he couldnt afford with the intetion of scamming the company out of the item - clear NOW

I write a check for a mortgage. Mortgage company doesn't cash check...it doesn't mean I have an extra $3K to play with!

So for 6 months they forget to charge you. Since you have a busy life that your notpawing over your banking statements in minuscia on a daily basis. You dont notice, the mortgage company pulls $21,000 out of your account causing you to go overdrawn and get hit with bank fees. Why would you complain about the fees since its your fault for not having $21,000 sitting in your account to pay it. You really shouldnt have had those car repairs or someone sick in hospital.

It would be my fault. As a fiscally responsible person I know how to balance my accounts so this doesn't happen. I also know which checks are uncashed (all one of them that I write per month).


Sidenote: That scenario reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry cashes gammy's check.

What a crappy existance to have you whole life planned out to the millisecond.
Do you spend 15 minutes going through your grocery receipt everytime you go shopping to make sure it all scanned correctly. Or do you have it all calculated before you even checkout.

Here's what some of you seem to be missing. There's a difference between writing a check/paying on credit and not getting charged at all until 6 months later. When you buy something on credit or write a check, it is your obligation to have the money ready (when the credit card bill comes, or however long your check was valid for). You have NO obligation to remember every purchase you've ever made if you don't get charged.

op,

call the company & say that your son (LizardSlayer) became distraught after he was caught using his new laptop to view child porn. as a result, he committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. his body has yet to be found, but a suicide note was left behind. offer to send a copy by mail, email or fax.

How is it a crappy existence to be FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE. LOL. I'd think that being fiscally responsible offers a much more enjoyable experience in life. Also, there is nothing wrong with estimating how much you might spend at the store. I keep track of how much stuff is as I put things in my cart based on what's on my shopping list. I also DO check to make sure there weren't any errors on the receipt. Some of us clearly value money a lot more than others. Regardless, how do either of those things have anything to do with keeping track of money that you already spent, regardless of whether you were actually charged or not?

I consider responsible use of a CC as doing periodic checks of your charges for that billing cycle online to make sure things aren't out of wack (whether that is getting charged more or less than you should be). What if you got double charged on something? The supposed "not-crappy existence" you are speaking of would overlook something like that and you probably wouldn't realize it until months later.

The thread isnt that long stop taking quotes out of context. It was a reply to someone elses comment who couldnt comprehend someone having money to buy something one month but not necessarily having the money 3 months later.

So you're saying that, in your scenerio, if you had been paying your mortgage, that you simply wouldn't have fixed your car or taken care of that someone sick in the hospital?
Your logic is :shake:

And your sure as hell should have 21000 in your account at that point if your mortgage company forgot to charge you 21000. You're just stupid if you think the mortgage company is going to just forget about you.

You know what they say about making assumptions. He used mortgages as an example. :whistle:

Amazes me how people dont read a whole thread. If your lucky they read the first post and last post. Often they dont even do that they just read a thread title ;)

If OP had received his bill in a 'timely' fashion there would be no issue. He would have paid his cc statement and that was that. The company screwed up and now it becomes OPs fault and he has to go through a headache to figure out if they are double billing him. I think its pretty crappy for them to come after him 3 months after the fact.

Here is an example a company delivered a big bulky package which turned out to be a table. It was delivered to our address but it was for the people that owned the place before us. I would have been well in my right to simple keep the package and not go through the aggrevation of talking to some robots at the company to get it taken to correct address.

So i called the company and told them the mistake. They asked me if i knew where the people had moved to and could i call the previous owners to have them pick it up. I told them i didnt and it was their responsibility to have the package delivered to the right place. The table would never have fit in my vehicle. They couldnt simply have UPS come pick it up and have it sent to correct place. In the end i pressured them into contacting the previous owner and arranged for them to drive across town to pick up their table.

I told the previous owner to file a charge back with the creditcard company because the item was never received and the company was more than happy to inconvenience everyone involved. They wanted to save a few bucks on redelivery instead.

Life isn't planned out..but I have a thing for numbers. I know when something is off. Grocery receipts take 30 seconds or less but yes I do scan them and I generally do have a ballpark number of how much the total is going to be before I check out...I can't help it as I just happen to memorize numbers easily.

Also I don't want you to think I'm not applying any responsibility to the company as it's a bad billing practice but I also know that mistakes happen. I'm glad this company has the controls in place to catch these sorts of errors, however it still does not take away the OP's responsibility and duty to pay the bill. It may be an inconvenience and he may have to eat ramen for weeks but nonetheless he owes the money.

The seller can only charge the buyer when the item leaves the warehouse - within x hours (depends on terms, I'm not too sure since I do not deal with physical goods) unless the seller has a billing contract with them. Otherwise they cannot charge your credit card after x hours since they would lose a chargeback.

That's the reason why they sent him a bill instead of charging his credit card again. Obviously the buyer is obligated to pay but he has to agree to it. I'm not concert on the details since I just skipped over this section in all my merchant accounts since I deal with virtual goods.

three words

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

keep the laptop, don't pay

ezmoney

You really have no idea what SOL is do you? If you did you would not have even brought it up as the charge is only 3 months old.

Sounds like you're playing dumb and waiting for feedback to see if you can get away from payinG:lol:

not to pick fights, but i very easily gauge when to take my car in for service by x months depending on how the total balance of my account looks.

Honestly, I would expect to put money onto a CC and confirm myself that it is charged, but I could very easily see where i paid 1k (last price i paid for a laptop), used the CC to buy groceries and the like, paid off the CC every month just as expected (usually come up to about the same price near cap every time), then say on the 5th month, been like "Alright, looks like the savings over the last 4 months are good, let's get this thing serviced for xyz dollars", only to find out that my CC is maxed because of some error in the car (who would not fix a problem with their motor vehicle with NO other expected financial obligations) and now the company wants to charge me for the 1k I no longer have

I dont think i'd ever wind myself up in a situation like that, until my fiancee pulled a "Oh hey i need 4k for schooling, then 2 weeks later the school rejected the charge and sent her a check, she needs another 6k (because the new semester started, she's going to do a may-mester class and the charge for that has been implied), and this all needs to be paid within the week or she loses all classes. I have full faith that the school messed up, but now i'm out 10 grand and all it would take is something like the OP's situation to put me in one sour spot.

By Scampster's logic, if the company had double-charged OP, then OP noticed 3 months later and complained, the company should reply with "Well, you paid us 3 months ago, and now we've had to use that money to do other things because we have budgeting skills of a lemur, and so it's rightfully ours and we shouldn't be expected to pay you back."

Call your CC company and make sure you weren't charged, once you verify that you weren't, pay the man.

lol, I forgot about this thread! It sure did get a lot of attention! Just in case anyone is wondering, I have the rest of the story now. It turns out that some kind of issue caused me and everyone else that bought one of these laptops that night (I think the count was near 200 when I first came along) to not be charged, something to do with whoever processes the cards for them, at least that's what they told me when I called. I didn't feel comfortable giving my credit card number over the phone, so I had them mail me a bill and I will mail them a check requiring a signature, just for grins. It's a shame how many people came here telling me to steal the laptop and making comments about how I was just trying to get out of paying for it, scumbags! :o)

LOL OP is the only honest person from Alabama!

Why is that funny?

It's still better to pay by credit card because of the extra warranty included with almost all of them, plus there's the extra consumer protection they offer (some because of Amex, Visa, MC, and Discover rules,some because of federal law). I give merchants a 1-use credit card number (Citibank, Discover, and I think Bank of America), if my card issuer offers them and if the merchant's processing system will accept them (apparently Amazon's won't, because they access each card number twice), but giving even your permanent card number isn't really that risky, especially over voice phone.

Perfectly said.

Paying by credit card is far safer than paying with a check.

Where did the extra money he saved go? wah......:lmao:

I don't think that is correct. Discover states on their site that you may use a virtual card on subscription based services and the since it is the same merchant they can access it as many times as they want, so I would think this would allow it to work on Amazon.

When I placed an order in late Dec. 2011 with an outside merchant that sold through Amazon, my 3 attempts to use Discover and Citibank 1-use credit card numbers failed, and Amazon told me their system tried to make 2 charges each time, first a $1 test charge, then the regular charge.

Amazon's e-mails:

"If you're using a Secure Online Account Number or Virtual Credit Card Number, your transaction may have been declined due to a technical issue preventing these Secure Online Account numbers from processing successfully for Amazon orders. This issue can be eliminated in the following ways:

-You can use your actual card number printed on your card.
-You can use a different payment method."

"We're writing to let you know that we are having difficulty processing Discover (exp. 20xx/xx) payment for the above transaction."

I understand both sides of the argument but lets be real. This is not Amazon or Newegg who have slush fund for just type of scenario. This is a smaller retailer that at MOST was making $20 gross on this computer (remember they priced it low enough to be a "slickdeal") However after labor, overhead and shipping it was more like $0-$5. By not paying you are taking any profit they MAY have made from the sale of 61+ computers. SD is for great deals, not great steals

Ricky Bobby: Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Crass Jesus or whoever you want.