Issues with Digital River Customer Service

[chuc98]

how many times do i have to say i didn't click submit 5 times! i clicked it once, got and error, and then started back from square one. i use the net to pay all my bills, i know not to, and don't, hit submit more then once. but obviously getting an error page then starting from scratch and hitting submit more then once is the same thing.

i asked for the escalation dept and they connected me to the same place i've been sent each time. they want to know my order number and then they say we have no order for you and blah blah blah.

i'm not blamming matty/degital river so much as i'm just mad that no one can just say here ya go, we've dropped the holds and now your moneys back.

It sounds like you really need to get on your bank and keep going higher and higher through their chain of command until you get this resolved there. Another option is to go to the matty forums and post about this issue. Their customer service is always watching the threads there. You might get some resolution that way. Either way, you have to be persistent. I'd still say talking to your bank is the best way to go though, as you can go in and talk with them in person.

[mjharwood]

I'd rather not get involved into this member created crapfest, but still, if nothing else, Stprime, consider contacting the fraud department of your issuing debit card. Usually you can use the number on the back of the card to report it, but specificy the fraud department when you want to talk to someone if it's not an option.

That way you can file a claim that would negate any fees you have for negative balance and force the wheels turning to resolve your problems.

What fraud??? There isn't an attempt, either willfully or by accident, to take his money without providing product or services. Unless there is an actual date cleared on his online statement (most FIs show "Pending" until it ACTUALLY processes) there is no actual charge, just authorizations. Where is the fraud in that???

On a somewhat related tangant, way back when, ordering King Grayskull, I got the error on the checkout screen as it timed out on me. I closed the window, about 20 minutes later I gave it another go, it again timed out on me, this time during the final checkout. I never got an order confirmation. 4 days later I got a shipment confirmation and a single King Grayskull, with a single order then appearing in my order history.

This actually is probably the more helpful bit of info from the post... Stprime, have you tried going either to the Order History section of mattycollector.com or to www.findmyorder.com and used the tools there to check your order history? While I have had an order once not show up in my mattycollector.com history, the e-mail and last 5 digits of credit card number search on findmyorder will bring up the most recent order you placed... That will show you if there is in fact a successful Orko order in their system and what that order number is, at least. It's a start... and gives you an idea of whether or not any of your attempts actually processed.

I'd still say talking to your bank is the best way to go though, as you can go in and talk with them in person.

If it's just authorizations, the bank can't release them at the consumer's request. They need the request from the merchant who requested the authorizations in the first place. The only thing the bank might be able to do is waive any fees that are incurred because of the negative balance... and even that they would only do after the erroneous authorizations fall off, probably. They don't know they're not going to clear until they don't clear...

[Pravus Prime]

What fraud??? There isn't an attempt, either willfully or by accident, to take his money without providing product or services. Unless there is an actual date cleared on his online statement (most FIs show "Pending" until it ACTUALLY processes) there is no actual charge, just authorizations. Where is the fraud in that???

Read:

but it's not a credit card, it's my bank/debit card that i use as a credit so it's there, but it's gone at the same time. it put me in a negitive balance.

yes, i was charged 5 times totaling $168.50 but i had no order go through... the only time it "went through" it came back that he was sold out. so in my history i have an "Order Unsubmitted".

Tell me again it's not fraud.

[mjharwood]

Tell me again it's not fraud.

Nothing you quoted constitutes fraud (definition from dictionary.com: deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage)... It's a great example of how a web store should not work, but there is no fraud... Again, they authorized the card, which means it has NOT actually been charged... nothing is officially charged until it is cleared. Until/unless it clears and then no product or service is received AND the company shows an unwillingness to refund the cleared transaction, there is nothing that constitutes fraud. Incompetence, maybe, but not fraud. Since this all transpired on Monday, I would almost guess that the "offending" authorizations will be gone by the weekend.

People are so quick to jump to "worst case scenario" and "the corporation is big and bad" that they fail to see the facts and look at how things actually work. I totally understand getting swept up in the emotion of the moment, but emotion doesn't overrule fact. All the things I am pointing out (logically, not emotionally) are the facts of how business and "credit" card processing and financial institutions work.

Suppose for a moment that his bank did, on a consumer's word that these authorizations that have not cleared yet were "mistakes"... now suppose the company in question actually did successfully process the orders and ship out product. Because the bank released the authorizations, the company now has an uphill battle, which could in some cases include collections actions, trying to recover either their money or their product.

Again there is no fraud in this situation, just a lot of incompetence.

I do hope that, if any bank fees arose from the situation, the bank sees fit to reverse them...

[Spectror]

What happened to stprime is just one more example of how "fans-friendly" the awful "messycollector" site is...

Fortunately, Mattel has been "working on it"... for 2 YEARS !

At this point, it's not even funny anymore.

I understand fully stprime's justified rage...

[Prince Adam's Dad]

First of all, if he is getting an 'Order Unsubmitted' error message, it's natural to think that 'hey, looks like my order didn't go through-I should try again'.

You said to wait to see if the order had gone through. Well, one of the issues on the site is that it's monumentally unstable on order days, to the point that navigating ANYWHERE causes a WSOD. If stprime (or anyone with a similar issue) had "waited for a confirmation e-mail" (my confirmation e-mail didn't come until 45 minutes after, and I ordered at 18 after) or tried to get to their order history (which also doesn't always immediately update), they easily would have missed out on what they wanted. Yes, Orko lasted a bit longer, but the track record for duration of first-availability sales speaks for itself. 90% of the time, they would have missed out.

Tell me how stprime was supposed to know that he shouldn't resubmit his order if the error message told him that his order was NOT submitted? They were charging his account against stock they didn't have. While not intentionally fraudulent, it's certainly based on site error. Stprime did NOTHING wrong.

[Marvelous0ne]

i just got off the phone with my bank and matty. i've was told by both to talk to the other. i've never been so ****** in my life. i tried to make a complaint but was on hold for the supervisor for 40 minutes and then i lost service. was anyone else charged and getting the run around. what can i do?!?!?

I've had this happen to me when they multiple charged my credit card. The thing is that it can take 2 weeks for the charges to be reversed. Your bank should reverse any overdraft charges since it was a mistake on Matty/DR side. I know it's hard, but you have to be patient. It will get resolved and you will get your money back. But I would say that it might be best to get a credit card to future purchases. This way your personal account will stay that way and you don't have to go through this again.

[scott metzger]

Seems to me that, if someone gets a message while on the site that the order hasn't been submitted, going back and trying again is a very reasonable thing to do, especailly since, as has been pointed out, checking order history is virtually impossible on Matty Disaster Day.

I do second the idea of posting the problem in the forum on Matty for order problems. They do actually seem to check there and try to respond. The site itself may be a disaster, but I've noticed some of the moderators on the forums there are actually quite helpful.

[mjharwood]

To the people (adam03) with the snyde comments about stprime's situation, please try to be constructive. While it may not be 'intentionally fraudulent', it's certainly a fiasco.

First of all, if he is getting an 'Order Unsubmitted' error message, it's natural to think that 'hey, looks like my order didn't go through-I should try again'.

You said to wait to see if the order had gone through. Well, one of the issues on the site is that it's monumentally unstable on order days, to the point that navigating ANYWHERE causes a WSOD. If stprime (or anyone with a similar issue) had "waited for a confirmation e-mail" (my confirmation e-mail didn't come until 45 minutes after, and I ordered at 18 after) or tried to get to their order history (which also doesn't always immediately update), they easily would have missed out on what they wanted. Yes, Orko lasted a bit longer, but the track record for duration of first-availability sales speaks for itself. 90% of the time, they would have missed out.

Tell me how stprime was supposed to know that he shouldn't resubmit his order if the error message told him that his order was NOT submitted? They were charging his account against stock they didn't have. While not intentionally fraudulent, it's certainly based on site error. Stprime did NOTHING wrong.

Since I was the one countering the "fraud" claim suggested by another, I'll assume that's somewhat directed my way, and if you re-read my posts, I do agree that it is a poor reflection of the web store functionality (or, as you put it, a fiasco).

Also, the other information I posted about checking order history was, I believe, framed as a way to check NOW if any of the orders have gone through as a means to know what to expect to fall off in terms of authorizations (if no orders show submitted, then all authorizations should fall off).

The only thing I think stprime could have done, on his part, to even possibly prevent the multiple auths would have been to check his online banking after getting the error to see if there was an authorization... unfortunately, that wouldn't have been hugely helpful to a lot of people because that could be interpreted as a successful order going through... At that point the consumer has a choice to make: "I got this error message but the authorization went through... do I trust that means my order went through and sit back and relax, do I see the error message as a failure to fully process through and try again, or do I see the error message as a failure to fully process but not try again because I can't take another hit to my account?"

If I were in his shoes, I probably would have done the same thing as he did, however after a couple of attempts, if I knew my bank balance was already hovering near a "critical" spot, I probably would have checked my online banking website to make sure I wasn't getting multiple auth hits, and then waited for a rerelease or a reasonable after-market price. But, as you mention we don't usually feel like there's time to stop and check things, so I might have attempted myself into the red, too...

I'm actually quite curious about what the nature of the error message stprime received was... What did it say?

[Marvelous0ne]

Seems to me that, if someone gets a message while on the site that the order hasn't been submitted, going back and trying again is a very reasonable thing to do, especailly since, as has been pointed out, checking order history is virtually impossible on Matty Disaster Day.

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye Womp... wait a minute... Ok actually it is not impossible to get into your order history during Matty Chaos Day. Plus the traffic site wasn't bad 30 minutes after it went live. I easily checked my order status to make sure all was well when I have 2 different browsers up with multiple windows trying to order Orko.

He only placed the order five times because each time it told him that the order has not been submitted. Why in the world would anyone look for an order that the site itself told you wasn't submitted?

I hate to tell you this, but many times people who have received the screen stating their order did not go through during all the chaos that is Matty Day. Has had their order go through, then they place another order and complained about placing multiple orders. Matty's site does show you unsubmitted orders for a short period of time before they're removed. I know cause I have one for 2 Orkos. But cause I was having issues I used IE instead of Firefox and my order IE order came up first. But my Firefox order was still there!

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Frankly, I do find it ridiculous that these charges (even if they are just temporary charges that are in place to make sure the funds are available) even went through at all for an "unsubmitted" order. Whether the order didn't go through due to the items being out of stock, or just because of a website glitch that prevented it from becoming a "submitted" order, it really make no sense that the system would even need to check for funds for an order that is "unsubmitted" and therefore by definition won't be going through anyway.

This is doubly ridiculous if the item being out of stock was the reason for the unsubmitted orders. If the items were out of stock, then there was no product to base the charges on. The total should have defaulted to zero, and there would have been no need to even attempt to verify funds.

To put blame on stprime is ridiculous. If the site worked the way that it should in the first place, this wouldn't happen. But I do stand behind my earlier statements about why people should use credit cards instead of debit cards for this sort of thing. While I don't feel stprime is at fault for what happened, using a credit card instead helps prevent problems such as this from effecting someone's money in their actual bank account.

[scott metzger]

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye Womp... wait a minute... Ok actually it is not impossible to get into your order history during Matty Chaos Day. Plus the traffic site wasn't bad 30 minutes after it went live. I easily checked my order status to make sure all was well when I have 2 different browsers up with multiple windows trying to order Orko.

Even when people were sitting there looking at 10 minute WSOD and the usual sellout times are less than the 30 minutes you state, it may not be absolutely impossible. But neither is winning three lotteries in a row, and I wouldn't want to count on that, either.

Checking order history AND getting back to a working order screen on Matty during the ordering frenzy is about as easy as catching Bigfoot on film dancing the flamenco.

[Motorthing]

If this mess had happened to you I'm guessing not everyone here would be a paragon of Zen-like calm and tolerance in dealing with it. Trying to assign blame to him for his predicament is just assinine and smacks of the complacent "it hasn't happened to me so why worry" attitude that makes me wonder why I come by here much anymore.

Buying stuff on the Net isn't supposed to be a chore, it's been done for well over 15 years now and personally I have NEVER had to deal with the kinds of headaches and frustrations that Matty.com throws up on an all too regular basis.

They (DR) ****canned my 2010 Sub at She-ra for inexplicably trying to take funds from my old and long discarded card - why they tried to use this extinct card when they hadn't for last years Sub or the previous 5 months this year isn't explicable, but they did. And being on holiday for three weeks means I wasn't around to catch it as it happened - I'm dealing with DR right now to re-establish it and it's not an easy or straightforward thing, but I wouldn't even bother mentining all this in this guy's thread if it wasn't for the comments I've seen on here.

No other Etailer has put me to such lengths, and I really don't care how much you love MOTUC and this Line DR's continued Cluster****s are not excusable - not after more than 2 years.

If this guy pressed the wrong button 5 times big deal - he shouldn't have to be in that frakkin situation in the first place, and when sites like Matty go wrong not everyone has the instant knowledge to know precisely what to do in what can be a very upsetting and pressurised period of time.

So cut some slack, hope it NEVER happens to you....because on current performance hope is ALL that stops it coming your way too.

Rant over.

[horseman1981]

I can not even tell you how bad my June experience was with Matty.

My first order that was unsubmitted did hold the funds on my card,when I called dr they said this would come off in a few days because the product I wanted was out of stock.

My second order went unsubmitted but then 2 days latter changed to processing and did then charge my accout.Then it went back to unsubmitted after an email to DR and my card was refunded.

My third order went through fine and because of all the issues I had,DR sold me a She-ra and Keldor just to make up for the mishaps.

My bank never charged me fees because I explained what happened,all in all it was a rough couple of days...but ended well enough.

[darcerin]

This isn't so much of an issue as it is a concern:

My Club Eternia renewal was denied this morning because:

"We're sorry but we were unable to renew your Club Eternia subscription due to a credit card authorization failure. To learn more about the status of your Club Eternia account, contact Mattel at 877-GO-MATTY or visit http://www.findmyorder.com"

So I went to the site, but there's no real place on that link to look up your credit card information. So I called the phone number and a very nice lady helped me, and led me here: http://www.mattycollector.com/store/...isplayHelpPage

Which was great, because that gave me the power to change my card and stuff - however, they were charging my VISA which I haven't touched in a month, and there should have been NO issue with that card. So now I'm a bit nervous as to why I didn't get authorized for this transaction (and I dread calling my bank if it's id theft.)

Meanwhile, I've changed the card to another one, but I wonder if they'll go back and look at my info and try to charge my new card, or will I have to call them and ask them to go look at my information?

[dorrmann]

That page you linked to can also be accessed through the FAQ page on their site. I don't know why, but that's the only way I've found to get to the credit card page.

[Vlcan]

Today in my email account I received an automation failure w/ my credit card. I've been using same cc # for the last year and have received my sub. figures all the time. No problems. Now of course I called DR and they sent me a link which is the same link on mattycollector to change or update your cc #. I did this before I even called DR. So my questions are these:
1. Will I get my August Sub. (Whiplash)?
2. Will I get anymore of my 2010 sub. figures?
3. Will I get my 2011 sub. that I ordered in July?
4. Do I sit back and wait for this new cc # to enter the system to see if I get my sub. figures?
Any help would be great. I don't want this to be a nightmare. I don't think DR knew what I was talking about when I was mentioning the MOTU sub.
Any help would be great.

[darcerin]

Vlcan, looks like you and I are in the same boat. I just got home and checked my credit card account and there is NOTHING wrong with it, no funny charges, and nowhere near my limit. Someone screwed up punching in our card numbers methinks. I'm going to call them tomorrow morning and tell them I put a new card number into mattycollectors site, so there SHOULD NOT be further problems.

[Vlcan]

Vlcan, looks like you and I are in the same boat. I just got home and checked my credit card account and there is NOTHING wrong with it, no funny charges, and nowhere near my limit. Someone screwed up punching in our card numbers methinks. I'm going to call them tomorrow morning and tell them I put a new card number into mattycollectors site, so there SHOULD NOT be further problems.

Hey darcerin,
I have good news so far. I did put in a different cc# and I received a renewal for the August sub. figure. Now I have to see if I get an email about them shipping the fig. I'm crossing my fingers. It's nice to see something is working right for DR. Hope things go well for you.

[Frogster]

My subscription was cancelled yet again for the 3rd time this Summer. It all began when I returned my defective Optikk for an exchange back in May. This is gotten beyond ridiculous.


Just got my Club Eternia subscription renewal; one day after Whiplash went on sale and sold out. Wow... All I can say. Wonder if it would even be renewed had I not called and complained Saturday and yesterday morning.

[byinfernoslight]

Ordered Orko & Molarr. Got an order confirmation. After a week of not getting a shipping confirmation I went online to find the order was 'unsubmitted'. Contacted Matty to be told the order had not gone through, they were now out of stock, and my card would not be charged.

Checked credit card statement to find that my card has indeed been charged. Currently waiting a response (and wondering if in fact the figures are going to turn up on my doorstep in the next few days or not).

In other problems...

Not had an August subscription renewal, shipping notice, or charge. Currently waiting a response on this too.



edit:

Still no response about Orko & Molarr, however I've just had an email about my subscription. Apparently they can't find it. Great. So now not only do I have to go online to buy the figures every month for the rest of the year, but I also missed out on Whiplash.

NOT PLEASED.

[Arkangel]

On the 16ht i got

1 Whiplash
1 Trapjaw

On the 16th i got 3 order confirmations for

3 whiplash
3 trapjaw

Means that instead of 50US i'll be charged 150US

On that very same day i contacted digital river to cancel the extra 2 orders. so now two days later i get 3 Shipping confirmations saying that'll be CHARGED to each order.

This is ABUSIVE practice and i wish to file a complain, please someone in the US tell me how to put this thing to work like a comsumer defence, complain book or something that works effectively.

[Khror]

An other problem with DR...

I haven't received my count Marzo figure because DR didn't send it.

After I sent them an email, they checked and noticed an error occured with the warhouse.

So they answered to me they will sent it to me and that I will receive a shipping confirmation email.

After a week I sent an other email to warn them I haven't received any email yet. They answer there is no problem and that I will receive it.

It's now more than 2 weeks that I'm waiting this email ...

My Count Marzo figure is part of my subscription but I still don't have it and I fear to never have it one day unless I strat a war with DR!

[Emiliano]

New unpleaseant experience for me too.

I was waiting for a box with 3 Orkos and 2 Mo-Lars.
I got the box this week, and one Orko's was missing. The invoice inside the box still said 3 Okros.

I wrote Customer Service asking advices and they said they would look into the issue and let me know in 72 hours.

2 days later, the third Orko arrives in a separate shipping.
Cool, since I hadn't received any communication from them yet, I write again and tell them I received the Orko and the problem is solved.

However, on the package they wrote the wrong price: instead of $$35 (the single figure + shipping), they wrote $77
The result? €17.52 in custom fees.

I let them know in the same message.

Yesterday, I receive a message saying a replacement Orko has been shipped to me
And today, I recieve the generic response where they say they can't do nothing about custom fees.

Of course, I should be happy that I got somehow refunded by getting an extra Orko I can resell.
But the feeling that the level of incompetence is very high can't be shaken.
Thy just don't follow the threads with emails, and every communication is handled by a different rep that never talk to the others.
And they don't even read what a customer says. They wrote the wrong price so it's their fault if I got charged extra custom fees.
And they could have avoided shipping me an extra Orko for free, since I did tell them I got the missing one in time
Oh well...

[Angel-T]

I'm sad to hear this Emiliano, I am still waiting for my box with three Adams to arrive. If it's not here by the 2nd of September I am gonna start the process myself.