R.H. Barrett (.
RUN! You may be screwing your friends and relatives
RUN! Spent over an hour with a SC rep last night who could not step away from her cue cards and eventually she hung up on me. Situation: My wife ordered gifts for family on the SC website for Christmas and Valentines. When making the order, she followed these steps: 1- Logged into HER account where she has a charge capability. 2- When populating the order she mistakenly used the shipping address interchangeably with the billing address. Meaning she put the recipient address in both the billing and shipping fields. Her email and phone number were listed and she was logged into her account. 3- The item shipped, she received confirmation emails yet the recipient also received a bill for the amount of the item. One of two situations ensued: a. If the recipient had previously had or has an SC account, the system grabbed their account number associated and listed that in the credit agreement at which time, and unrecognized at the time, the recipient account was billed when she was logged into her own and different account. b. If the recipient didn't have an account with SC, she was presented with the customary credit account acknowledgement and while all seemed okay... a new SC account was created and the item and bill were sent to the recipient. 4. We called customer support 4x and receive the run around on their cue cards and are told that without certain information this could not of happened. WE are told that this sort of mix up is not possible because their system in very secure. 5. Just last night, after being hung up on by Ms. Crystal at customer service, I went to the site, on my work laptop, one that my wife has never so much as touched; and, created an order for my Father (has an SC account that was zero balance) and using the guest checkout feature, skipping the create account password entry area, was able to create an order that validated and in the payment section, was presented with several options: - Open a new SC Account - Use an existing Account - Use Credit or debit - Call in and pay by phone I alternately tried each of the options... The result was alarming... Mind you I am NOT logged into their system, I do NOT have an account and I am using the guest checkout feature. In the first instance of applying for an SC account, I am asked for SSN and DOB.. Standard credit app stuff... I abandon and move on ... Next, I clicks on the use existing account and I am presented with the last four digits of my father's account number and an acknowledgement of charge agreement... How the heck is this secure... The later two options of payment are self explanatory.. We went on to get on my wife's Laptop and repeat the process described above with one exception, she logged into her account and repeated her previous steps... all appears to be normal except where she is inserting her email and her phone number in the billing address... This has somehow caused the situation above and there are several new accounts or existing accounts that are being charged to fraudulently by SC in spite of all the statement of secure transaction. My wife actually looked back in here email and found that there were several payment reminders in her inbox for these other addresses and accounts but when clicking on the link, logging in and reviewing her orders, they are NOT on the list of items ordered in her order history. They are in fact on the other recipients existing accounts or the newly created accounts. WE are calling their management now... Under FTC rulings, none of the recipients are liable for these charges and they can be classified as a gift and not be forced to pay for them as SC is responsible for the error.. We are trying to do the right thing and pay for the items that were erroneously billed to our recipients. SC is making this extremely difficult and they are very combative.