having problems with waterstones online

GemJar_2

Hi all, I ordered two books for my mums birthday from Waterstones online in the very early hours of Friday morning, being told that books are 'usually' dispatched within 24 hours. I checked the status of my order on Tuesday and it still said 'order being processed' so I emailed them to make sure everything was okay. I also phoned them as they said it would take up to 48 hours to reply by email.

In the phone call the lady said that one of my books were not in stock (it told me it was in stock online), and I had recieved no communication saying any different, she couldn't tell me how long it would take to get it in stock, so I cancelled that book and just asked for the other one to be delivered which she did. Yesterday I received this email:

"

Dear Gemma,

Thank you for your email.

I have looked into your enquiry and I am pleased to inform you that we have successfully taken payment and your order is ready to be despatched, you will receive an email shortly confirming shipping information.

I apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience, please do not hesitate to contact us should you require any further assistance.

Kind regards,


Customer Service Team
Waterstones.com"





But today I received another email stating that my payment had been declined as I now have no money in my account (another bank charge presumably), I would have ensured the money was there had I previously not been told that the money had been taken.

“Dear Gemma,
I am writing to you in regards to the following order "The Queen of Subtleties"(this is the book I’ve cancelled) & "The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by [URL="javascript:doAuthorSearch('Alison%20Weir');"]Alison Weir[/URL]".
Unfortunately, we are not able to process payment for the above titles as the card got declined as we attempted to carry out the transaction.
Please can you kindly contact us by telephone on 0845 217 2920 (Monday-Saturday, 9am-6pm) so that we can update your payment details and complete the order.
Calls made from a BT Landline will usually be charged at a standard local rate. Calls from a mobile and other providers will incur a charge with rates varying dependent on the provider. Please contact your service provider for more information.
Please note that customers are advised to refrain from sending sensitive information such as credit card details via email.
We are looking forward to hearing from you. We apologise for the delay in dealing with your request.
Kind regards,
Nicolas Isokariari
Customer Service Team
Waterstones.com”

Does anybody have any ideas on how to pursue this further?
Thanks in advance, Gemma

bap98189

What do you mean pursue it further? You haven't paid them, so they aren't going to send you anything and will eventually cancel the order. If you want the book, put some money in your bank account, then ring them up, explain which book you want and pay them accordingly.

GemJar_2

But I've already been told that I HAVE paid them, not had chance to ring the bank and check

RadoJo

To be fair, it's not their fault that you haven't checked with your bank - almost every account seems to have internet banking attached, so you must be in a tiny minority who have to ring their bank to check their balance.
It's your responsibility to ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account to pay for all your purchases, so if you spent the money then there's not much you can do about it - Waterstone's telling you that payment had been taken doesn't make the money reappear in your account and I wouldn't expect them to be hugely sympathetic.

cyberbob

GemJar wrote: »

Does anybody have any ideas on how to pursue this further?
Thanks in advance, Gemma

The best solution is to make sure you have money in your account when you buy things.

Mupette

are we assuming that waterstones might have taken 2 lots of payments,

you really need to find the time to find this out from the bank

preable

Check your bank and see if the payment went though?

daveyjp

Waterstones are all over the place at the moment. They reorganised their warehousing and distribution operation and haven't a clue what is going on with suppliers, never mind customers.

Use Amazon instead - they are set up properly for online purchasing.

preable

Yup amazon is very good

GemJar_2

The money was in there, I recieved an email saying payment had gone through and then took the rest of the money out of my account to do food shopping, its hardly my fault if I get an email saying payment has been taken sucessfully, I assume this to be true. My account does have internet and telephone banking but I need a pin number to do both and I am waiting on that pin coming through so I have to actually go into the bank until it arrives. I got another email today apologising and saying that the email had been sent by accident. They didn't state which email had been sent by mistake so I'm still not too sure if I've paid or not, will go to the bank tomorrow morning if the pin still hasn't come.