email #3 to Customer 'Support' each previous was responded to with " We only ran your card once..."

Woot!.. You have lost a customer, and will be taking many, many with me and inform the BBB of your refusal to correct an error should this not be resolved soon.


Hello,

in regard to the series of pending charges on my debit card that triggered a seiries of overdraft charges that Woot! claims my bank is responsible for, and my bank states that the card was run 4 times by Woot!.....

I just got off of the phone with my bank and have transaction numbers and timestamps for 4 separate charges to the card, of which 1 went through (as I only bought 1 of the item)

2857681 - 12:43 - $54.11 - went through as it should of
2832669 - 15:02 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832675 - 15: 35 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832678 - 16:07 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees

So you see, Woot! is directly responsible for the overdraft fees that were incurred on 12/10-12/ 2012

When tallying up my available funds and deducting the actual purchases, I did not overdraw my account at all.... it only went negative due to the 3 additional pending transactions placed on my account by Woot! by authorizing the charges through Master card.

I would like to escalate this issue above a controlled email system. How can I get in touch with SOMEONE other than an anonymous email system?

spawnsharks wrote:email #3 to Customer 'Support' each previous was responded to with " We only ran your card once..."

Woot!.. You have lost a customer, and will be taking many, many with me and inform the BBB of your refusal to correct an error should this not be resolved soon.


Hello,

in regard to the series of pending charges on my debit card that triggered a seiries of overdraft charges that Woot! claims my bank is responsible for, and my bank states that the card was run 4 times by Woot!.....

I just got off of the phone with my bank and have transaction numbers and timestamps for 4 separate charges to the card, of which 1 went through (as I only bought 1 of the item)

2857681 - 12:43 - $54.11 - went through as it should of
2832669 - 15:02 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832675 - 15: 35 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832678 - 16:07 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees

So you see, Woot! is directly responsible for the overdraft fees that were incurred on 12/10-12/ 2012

When tallying up my available funds and deducting the actual purchases, I did not overdraw my account at all.... it only went negative due to the 3 additional pending transactions placed on my account by Woot! by authorizing the charges through Master card.

I would like to escalate this issue above a controlled email system. How can I get in touch with SOMEONE other than an anonymous email system?

Just wanted you to know we've pinged Customer Service on your behalf in hopes you can get your situation resolved.

spawnsharks wrote:Woot!.. You have lost a customer, and will be taking many, many with me and inform the BBB of your refusal to correct an error should this not be resolved soon.

just curious - what do you expect calling the bbb will accomplish? woot already has an "F" grade with them.

http://www.bbb.org/dallas/business-reviews/internet-shopping/woot-in-carrollton-tx-90017163

spawnsharks wrote:email #3 to Customer 'Support' each previous was responded to with " We only ran your card once..."

Woot!.. You have lost a customer, and will be taking many, many with me and inform the BBB of your refusal to correct an error should this not be resolved soon.


Hello,

in regard to the series of pending charges on my debit card that triggered a seiries of overdraft charges that Woot! claims my bank is responsible for, and my bank states that the card was run 4 times by Woot!.....

I just got off of the phone with my bank and have transaction numbers and timestamps for 4 separate charges to the card, of which 1 went through (as I only bought 1 of the item)

2857681 - 12:43 - $54.11 - went through as it should of
2832669 - 15:02 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832675 - 15: 35 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees
2832678 - 16:07 - $54.11 - was pending during time account went overdrawn, triggering fees

So you see, Woot! is directly responsible for the overdraft fees that were incurred on 12/10-12/ 2012

When tallying up my available funds and deducting the actual purchases, I did not overdraw my account at all.... it only went negative due to the 3 additional pending transactions placed on my account by Woot! by authorizing the charges through Master card.

I would like to escalate this issue above a controlled email system. How can I get in touch with SOMEONE other than an anonymous email system?

Have you called your financial institution yet? Because you didn't actually overdraft. So any fees they charged your are null. "Pending" does not equal "paid."

thumperchick wrote:Have you called your financial institution yet? Because you didn't actually overdraft. So any fees they charged your are null. "Pending" does not equal "paid."

Could have done, if that $162 was locked and another, legitimate debit was presented. Those locked funds weren't available to cover say a $15 charge to the grocery store. Fee charged.

Now, a NICE bank would understand what happened and kindly refund them, unless it was a habitual problem. And I'm not really sure how much at fault woot might be, since it doesn't seem like they ran the card more than once intentionally. Possibly a glitch of some sort? I've had something similar happen where a charge was ran more than once due to technical difficulties, but in that case, the charge was not pending, it was completed and they refunded me the money. With pending...I can't see how that could be woot. The banks are the ones who designate something as 'cleared' v 'pending'.

no1 wrote:just curious - what do you expect calling the bbb will accomplish? woot already has an "F" grade with them.

http://www.bbb.org/dallas/business-reviews/internet-shopping/woot-in-carrollton-tx-90017163

I'm kind of surprised. Woot is a lot better than companies I have seen with good ratings.

FenStar wrote:I'm kind of surprised. Woot is a lot better than companies I have seen with good ratings.

To my mind, the surprise is that any savvy person would think BBB ratings mean anything.

My latest in this. Woot is still dodging the issue...






I have provided most of the information, but here goes all in a single missive.

On December 11th there was a Woot off in which I ordered a number of things, one of which was a Kelty backpack. That order number is 42756790

The funds for this order were held a total of four times by Master card via Woot transaction requests. Those transaction numbers are:

2832675 - $54.11
2832675 - $54.11
2832669 - $54.11
2832681 - $54.11

They were for $54.11 each for a total of $216.44 of funds held on my account.

During this time, the other orders went through. They were:

42755041
42726952
42717274
42716249

Each of which triggered an overdraft charge of $30 to my account.

When the charge for the backpack went through (42756790), it also triggered an overdraft charge of $30 for a total of 5 charges adding up to $150.00 in bank fees.

There were enough funds to cover the purchases I made in the account at the time of purchase. It was the dynamic of the multiple holds of $54.11 that caused this domino effect of fees to start.

The positive thing here is that those were the ONLY transactions to my account in the 72hrs surrounding the purchases, so it can easily stand out when researching my account.

At this point both my bank and Woot are denying responsibility for these fees, mind you, two multi-million dollar businesses, and leaving me, the consumer to whom which an additional hold of approximately $150 teetered my account into the negative responsible, when in actuality, I did not overdraw my account.

Please make this right, Woot.

noslensj wrote:To my mind, the surprise is that any savvy person would think BBB ratings mean anything.

This. A thousand times this.

Thing is, I understand some of their customer support policies. This stuff is cheap, and a good chance that it is drop-shipped from the factory, or truckload deals made and distributed, making exchanges and returns fairly impossible. With this dynamic, a solid customer support team is not really feasible. HOWEVER, at least have a skeleton crew to handle valid screw-ups... The current email system and plausible deniability is infuriating to say the least.

spawnsharks wrote:Thing is, I understand some of their customer support policies. This stuff is cheap, and a good chance that it is drop-shipped from the factory, or truckload deals made and distributed, making exchanges and returns fairly impossible. With this dynamic, a solid customer support team is not really feasible. HOWEVER, at least have a skeleton crew to handle valid screw-ups... The current email system and plausible deniability is infuriating to say the least.

I don't know why the extra holds, as that didn't happen to me the time I clicked the big button more than once. Woots responsibility is to ask for the hold to be changed to confirmed. But credit companies often have a policy of keeping a hold for 7-10 days after a hold has been released/confirmed (yes even when confirmed they may keep a double charge on the account). This is an underhand tactic designed to cause the fees you are experiencing.

Assuming you are in the habit of paying on time you can generally get one fee waived a year when you ask nicely with a reasonable story, like you have, admitting to blame is unimportant only the removal of fees matters. If nice doesn't work point out how much free money you have given them in interest payments and threaten to move to a different company.

Once this is cleared up I suggest you look at your account daily to see if the credit company employs the tactics of double charging, if they do switch anyway.

Final update: my bank finally made things right and reversed all of the charges once i went in and spoke with someone face to face. Woot still claims that they only see one transaction, even after providing a list of transaction numbers.

I am unsure about how i feel continuing to shop here after this... Even though i want a couple of things offered today... What a sucker i can be for a deal.

If you read this, just make sure you double check your bank account after purchase so that you can avoid this kind of headache...

Sort of late to the party .....but.

I would suggest you look into using a true credit card for your online transactions rather than a debit card if possible. As I understand the process there are more "protections" built into the credit card clearing process. From my experience charges to my debit card are instantaneous. Pretty much like a cash transaction. Charges to your credit card take a few more steps to complete. I have seen multiple "swipes" get cleared up when the daily clearing process happens. Not sure of all the details but it might be worth the effort to use a credit card if possible. You can get pretty good information from a credit union or your bank.
clarkhoward.com has some interesting things to say about debit cards and our banks if you are interested.
Better luck next time. Rusty

FWIW my bank manager told me to always use my debit/mc as a credit card. More protection, no POS fees.

Glad it all worked out.

I just read through all of this and find it infuriating that Woot never came back with any kind of apology and offer to rectify the situation. It seems like a cut and dried case. Now I don't know how I feel about shopping here. Things going downhill fast here. And you can tell by much more experienced wooters NOT wooting anymore because there is 10 woot-off discussion comments where there used to be 50. Woot Offs used to be an event. Something happened. Probably too many Philips refurbs.

jmackinac wrote:I just read through all of this and find it infuriating that Woot never came back with any kind of apology and offer to rectify the situation...

Agreed. I know I couldn't afford those kinds of fees/holds on my account, and I sometimes use my debit card for purchases with trusted companies because I want to avoid using my credit card and incurring debt. Guess Woot is no longer one of those trusted companies.