Waiting on hold with Newark

[Smoky]

I placed an order with Newark on Monday for a Peak DCA75 Semiconductor Analyzer.

I received an e-mail Tuesday at lunch from Newark that the order is on hold due to a credit card issue and to call them to resolve it.

I log onto my bank account and I see that the funds are pending.

I call Newark to find out what the issue is.

After 50 minutes on hold a lady answers and tells me to reply by e-mail???

I ask, what is the problem? She says to read the e-mail they sent!!!!!!




...the bottom of their email stated, if we do not get a reply within 48 hours, the order will be cancelled.

Guess what I'll be doing

[Stray Electron]

  My AC went out a few days ago and I called a couple of AC places to see about getting it repaired. One of the places that I called doesn't answer their phone and their phone won't record a message and their recorded message says that "due to Covid" I have to Text them instead of talking to them on the phone!  I HATE Texting!  Guess who will never get any of my business!

[Smoky]

I had an idea as to why the credit card payment stalled but the lady at Newark kept telling me to reply by e-mail.

Screw that after waiting on hold for an hour! I e-mailed Newark alright, I told them to cancel the order!

Anywho, since the lady at Newark didn't want to listen to me, let me tell EEVblog why I think the credit card payment went into "pending" status:

When I was checking out on Newark's website, I noticed as I typed my address, Newark's software started to do that "auto-fill" thing.

My address is "Dixie Trail" but Newark automatically abbreviated it to read "Dixie Trl."

It also added the four numbers after my Zip Code but without a hyphen (-) in-between.

Since I received a confirmation e-mail of the order from Newark, I imagined that all was good.

I believe these "abbreviations" throw up a flag with the banks!

Screw Newark!

Since time was getting short, and I wanted this analyzer by the weekend, I called Digi-Key by phone.

Digi-Key immediately pulled up my name on their computer, charged my credit card and I got instant approval.

I received an e-mail two-hours later from Digi-Key saying my order was shipped along with a tracking number

[bob91343]

My dealings with Newark date back to the late 1940s when I patronized their retail store on Jackson Blvd. in Chicago.  Even then, I preferred Allied but no longer remember why.

I wanted a transformer and after looking in their respective catalogs I found what I wanted.  The price from Allied was $1.76 and from Newark it was $2.20.  Thinking it unwise to stint on transformer quality, I bought the one from Newark and was unhappily surprised to learn it was the same Thordarson part.

Many years later I tried to buy from Newark but their minimum order requirement stopped me in my tracks.  I still haven't bought from them.

[tooki]

My address is "Dixie Trail" but Newark automatically abbreviated it to read "Dixie Trl."

It also added the four numbers after my Zip Code but without a hyphen (-) in-between.

Since I received a confirmation e-mail of the order from Newark, I imagined that all was good.

I believe these "abbreviations" throw up a flag with the banks!

I’m quite confident that the credit card systems handle abbreviations (and even misspellings) just fine, and are quite aware of zip code formats and how to decode them.

The address corrections, by the way, are almost guaranteed to be supplied by USPS, UPS, FedEx, or another vendor, all of which provide address verification software/services, based primarily on canonical USPS data.

So whatever the issue was, it definitely didn’t have anything to do with “Dixie Trail” vs. “Dixie Trl” nor with the zip code.

[Stray Electron]

The address corrections, by the way, are almost guaranteed to be supplied by USPS, UPS, FedEx, or another vendor, all of which provide address verification software/services, based primarily on canonical USPS data.

So whatever the issue was, it definitely didn’t have anything to do with “Dixie Trail” vs. “Dixie Trl” nor with the zip code.

   None of that is true with FedEx. I used to ship a lot through them and I constantly complained to them about how poor their system was.  Every field (such as state and city) had to be typed in individually even though I had already put in the zip code. The "good" thing about it was that you could misspell names or put in the zip code and street address and other information in any format that you wanted and it would always accept it.

 It's been a long time since I used UPS but from what I remember they did check the address but only to see if they were a regular customer. If not and if the shipper didn't have an account with them then UPS charged the shipper an extra fee. You had be to sure that you used the exactly same address that the company was registered under or you got charged extra. It didn't matter if there were two doors going into the same building. If you sent it to the wrong one, then you got charged extra.

[Smoky]

I thought that the way Newark merged the Zip code with the +4 without a hyphen was the issue. I never seen that before:



But since Newark didn't want to talk, I wasn't going to delay my order from shipping by another day by sending them an e-mail.

Have you guys ever been to a gas station where the pump requires you to enter the Zip Code of your bank card?

What I'll do next time is I'll enter my Zip Code with the +4 numbers and see if the authorization goes through or if it's declined

[tooki]

The address corrections, by the way, are almost guaranteed to be supplied by USPS, UPS, FedEx, or another vendor, all of which provide address verification software/services, based primarily on canonical USPS data.

So whatever the issue was, it definitely didn’t have anything to do with “Dixie Trail” vs. “Dixie Trl” nor with the zip code.

None of that is true with FedEx. I used to ship a lot through them and I constantly complained to them about how poor their system was.  Every field (such as state and city) had to be typed in individually even though I had already put in the zip code. The "good" thing about it was that you could misspell names or put in the zip code and street address and other information in any format that you wanted and it would always accept it.

Nope, you’re wrong:

1. You’re talking about FedEx’s own website, right? We aren’t.
2. ”Used to” suggests that was in the past. I’m talking about the present. And in the present, FedEx offers an address validation service as an API for developers to integrate into their own software.

[Stray Electron]

Have you guys ever been to a gas station where the pump requires you to enter the Zip Code of your bank card?

  All of the time.  But I've never tried giving it the zip plus four.  I'll try that the time time that I'm there and I'll report back here.   In hind site, it's a surprise that the stations don't require zip+4 or a PIN since the 5 number zip by itself is easy to guess.

[Bassman59]

Have you guys ever been to a gas station where the pump requires you to enter the Zip Code of your bank card?

  All of the time.  But I've never tried giving it the zip plus four.  I'll try that the time time that I'm there and I'll report back here.   In hind site, it's a surprise that the stations don't require zip+4 or a PIN since the 5 number zip by itself is easy to guess.

Also the pumps display the zip code as you enter it, so the bad guy who installed the stripe swipe reader can look over your shoulder and see it.

[graybeard]

I hate dealing with Newark.  Their customer service sucks.

About 15 years ago I bought some parts for a project at work with my corporate AMEX.  Newark billed AMEX and was paid.  However they marked my account unpaid and sent it out for collection.

I emailed them copies of the paid receipt.  I spent a couple hours on the phone with them.   Three times it was supposedly resolved and then they would send it out to a collection agency again.

I work for a very large Aerospace corporation, and since this purchase was for business I got our legal department involved, and suddenly the issue was resolved.

Thus I hate dealing with Newark!

[besauk]

Pardon for resurrecting an old thread, but Newark continues to be a horrible company to do business with.  I’ve ordered a couple of fairly pricey items from them in the past two years, and was treated to a mystery credit hold each time.  After finally reaching a person in their credit team, they RELUCTANTLY released the order.  Fast forward to now - again a credit hold.  Do they think I’m running a multi year con???   Totally unacceptable and frankly insulting.  I’ve never had this issue with any other vendor.