Ethical problem - items ordered and received not charged
 

Around Feb 25th I ordered $ 200.00 worth of Gift Certificates and a special pillow ( 2 separate orders) from Brookstone through the Goldpoints website.
All expected Goldpoints posted promptly but as of today my Diners Club has not been charged ( now almost 3 months) in addition I received double the order in pillows, but my wife likes them so we decided to keep them both and if they charge us for both no problem.

What would you do?
Should I call them and ask about the charge, wait longer and/or hope they somehow never find out about it ?

The gift certs were a gift for a friend who has not redeemed them yet and I would be very embarrassed if they were not honored by a local store.

Brookstone no longer at the Goldpoints site, anything like this happen to anybody else?

Mike

I had a Virgin flight that took 5 months to post to my credit card (I forgot about it so I never called them about it - or even noticed it missing), I say they will work it out in time. I would give it past 6 months to avoid the possible "double billing" from them.

Aside from things such as tips added to the bill afterwards and some manual entries, all of the other charges are almost sure to show up...eventually. Just be patient.

That's really something only you can answer.

I once had a house payment not clear but credit to my loan. I called the lender and they insisted it had been paid. My credit union said it had never been put through. Not much more I could do.

Are you sure you put it on Diners? I frequently think I've put something on my debit card, write it down in my check book, think it never cleared and then realize I actually put it on Amex.

As for the double order of pillows being sent ... I've had it happen quite often that a mail order company will send me the items twice. Most often when I call they tell me to keep the second item (usually it's of less than $50 value) because the cost of shipping it back to them and restocking isn't worth it to them.

[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 05-21-2002).]

Last year I ordered a portable bath spa from Shop4 (NW WP partner) and a week after receiving the unit I received a second unit that was never billed (about $50). I decided to wait a few weeks to see if the charge would hit my credit card. It did not. Then I called Shop4 to see if they had a record of the second unit being shipped and they did not. Shop4 buys merchandise from third party suppliers and items are ship direct from the supplier's warehouse. Called Shop4 again and had them send FedEx by the house to pick up the item. I know I would have felt guilty about keeping the spa I had not paid for. Must be that "do unto others..." thing my parents drilled into me. It was also a great lesson for our kids. Anyway. it was the right decision for me. As in past moral dilemma type posts, if you are asking the "should I, or shouldn't I" question, then you probably already know the answer that's right for you. More importantly, just think of the FF miles you'll miss out on if your card never gets charged! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

If you call them, here's probably what will happen:

They will thank you, charge your card, and tall you to keep the extra pillows.

Buzz?

I had a restaurant meal (about $25) that posted six months late; I figured they had caught the discrepency while checking the books (it wasn't until I went back through my quicken register that I realized that transaction hadn't cleared earlier; at first I thought it was a fraudulent charge.)

I would be cautious to call and inquire about not being charged. Your honesty can lead to a headache for you. It would be terrible if you called and they charge you for it now, then in six months or so the original purchase hits your account.

It is unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility that this could occur. Just wait it out. If they hit you with the charge six months later, you'll understand why.

Just my 2 cents....


Mike M

I have a similar but different situation:

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from a car rental company. They told me that they checked their books and that they forgot to bill me one rental more than a year ago (15 months!!!). As I rented a lot back then I didn't even notice.

Now they "asked" me to give them the permission to charge me. Legally I don't have to pay because it's so long ago.

The other replies above convinced me now that I should let them charge my credit card, but now I can't find their letter anymore...

Awhile back I had a similar situation where my account was credited a sum of money in the hundreds of dollars. The money wasn't mine; it was clearly an error. You wouldn't believe the difficulty I had trying to give the money back! I spoke with multiple people at both the vendor who made the credit and my credit card company. They all insisted it was correct. Most of them didn't even want to investigate it! Finally, one of them told me they would look into in. At this point, I left it alone since I had spent more than enough time trying to give the $$ back. Six weeks later the error was corrected.

My suggestion is to call the vendor and explain the problem.....once. If they don't want to look into it, that's there problem.

It is up to the company who is supposed to charge your credit card to do it. You did your part already. You gave them the credit card to which they were supposed to charge things.

Now, if they screw up, and don't do that, well, that's not your problem, it's theirs.

A long time ago I read an article about a company that specializes in going over rental receipts for car rental agencies. The number of mistakes in the customers' favor was so high it was worth it to to rental agencies to hire them - something like 40 percent of all rentals are mischarged. The company worked for something like 50 percent of the amount of money they recovered.

Thanks for all the replies/suggestions I think I will give them another 30 days and if I am not billed by then I will give them a call.

It ironical that just today I received an e-mail from Brookstone that started off
"you received this e-mail because you recently purchased an item from Brookstone.com..."
Mike

A couple of years ago I bought something from SkyMall and the charge took seven months to post on my Visa account. By that time I'd forgotten about the purchase and put the charge in dispute. Some companies obviously don't care about cash flow that much. I bet your GoldPoints charge will show up on your DC eventually.