Hardwareversand Order gone a bit pear shaped

macplaxton

Hi,

I placed an order for the first time with Hardwareversand. Here's the diary:

Fri 24th Aug - At 15:50 order online with HV.
Mon 27th Aug - I go to my bank (UB Palmerstown) with a completed transfer form for €871.24 for the goods.
Fri 31st Aug - The €871.75 (51¢ charge) appears to leave my account.
Sat 1st Sep - Get an email from HV saying I haven't paid.
Mon 3rd Sep - I email them advising that they have been paid. No response. Tue 4th Sep - I email them again that the have been paid. Still no response. I also receive on the Tuesday a confirmation letter from the UB that the transfer has been processed.
Wed 5th Sep - Email HV again (in my best German this time) to tell them I've paid them. No response again.
Thu 6th Sep - Telephoned them and we managed to understand each other to the point that a) they say they haven't been paid, b) call back at the beginning of next week.
Fri 7th Sep - Check HV on-line this afternoon and it still isn't showing as paid. Tried calling the FM section of the UB 6 times to check the transfer had been processed and couldn't get through. Had a look at the HV system tonight and it's now showing as cancelled.

Now, I'm a patient person, but this is stretching it. I've done eight previous cross-border Euro transfers to The Netherlands, Germany and Finland. The only outgoing transfer that got delayed was because the paperwork wasn't done at the branch, but on that occassion nothing came out of my account until it did get done. I've had one incoming payment from Switzerland that had €4.50 skimmed off it somewhere probably due to fat-fingers (€280.50 instead of €285.00 and all fees were paid by payee, I saw scans of the receipts).

I do feel that if the bank had got their finger out and had the transfer done on the Wed/Thu, my order would have progress forward. Also I noticed that during the day the order at HV was showing unpaid, but tonight when it was showing as cancelled, it was time-stamped 0932. So there's some lag in the system updating which isn't helping.

So I can only go on to grill HV tomorrow on the phone, who will say they haven't been paid. I can grill the UB on Monday, but they'll probably say it's been done. Where do I go from here?

Cheers,
Rich

Gonzovision

Hey if you look at some threads from the start or middle of august you will notice that a few of us were in that situation. I was sitting around for weeks waiting for my parts and in the end it was canceled just like you. In the end it turned out my stupid bank had never sent the transfer(even though when I checked it the money was gone).

Ive heard lots of good things about HV but until I can pay using a different method I will avoid.

white_falcon

yea after 1 month of me giving them the money, them saying they didnt get it, making 2 new orders and them cancelling both, i just asked for my money back. now im buying all the parts from komplett instead. they did give me 70 euros too much back, but hey i aint saying anything

i would just advise u to tell em u want ur money back and buy the parts from komplett

macplaxton

Thanks for the replies. When I made the order, the Boards.ie was down at the time. I managed to search and find your problems after the order was made. Here's an update:

Sat 8th Sep - HV finally reply to the 3rd email. They say (in German) "Thanks for the email, but we still haven't received your money. Please send us the the transfer". I email them back a scan of the confirmation. Prompt reply this time! They still can't find it and say "As soon as we get the money, we'll send it"

So I'm in a position now where I can do FA really until Monday when the bank is open. I've been trying to work out where the process has fallen apart. I'm fairly sure that the transfer has been done, but I will check and trace it with the bank. I'm also certain that the references are correct on the transfer but wonder if a fat-fingers clerk has struck again and the money is sitting in limbo. If it tries to go to a non-existing account, then it should make it's way back on recall. If it's sitting in HV's account unallocated, it should be matched up (manually even) with the order, should it not?

Now I see this posted has been moved. Whilst it might be a consumer issue, is the "Tech / Computers / Building & Upgrading" forum, not the best place to discuss purchases for a "Building & Upgrading" a computer?

Cheers,
Rich

Anti

And this is the reason why i refuse to do bank transfers. They take too long, and are unsecure. You also dont have hardly any fo the rights that you would if you used a CC. And all that hastle to save 100€... Really not worth it in my oppinion.

macplaxton

Anti wrote:

And this is the reason why i refuse to do bank transfers. They take too long, and are unsecure. You also dont have hardly any fo the rights that you would if you used a CC. And all that hastle to save 100€... Really not worth it in my oppinion.

Interesting points but you're peddling a few myths here:

They take too long - Only if you choose to use the low cost slow-boat service. You can make a same day/next day payment, but you'll be charged accordingly by the bank.

unsecure - Bank transfers are secure. Certainly more secure than paying by fake cash / bouncy cheques / stolen cards / PayPal.

hardly any fo the rights that you would if you used a CC. Yes, you do have certain buyer safeguards with a CC, but they also have to be paid for (stamp duty, commissions, etc) All being stuck onto the price you pay. And as for chip 'n' pin, that's just for the banks' benefit.

The problem here isn't totally the retailers making. If the retailer receives the money, I get the goods. The money isn't lost, either it hasn't been sent or is unallocated against the order. It's hassle anyone could do without, but I've never had hassle to date with getting money securely from A to B by this method. I've always used it with vendors I trust.

macplaxton

Update:

The bank had sent the money and the retailer appears to have it tied up with the order now. There was a slight misspelling of the account name, but all the crucial numbers were correct.

What I think has happened is that the bank was a bit slow in getting the transfer done. Had it be done one or two days earlier, then I think the retailer would have had no trouble in matching the credit to their account with the order, before the first non-payment email.

Once that first non-payment email gets sent, I think everything goes on the slow boat. They finally matched the money today, given that the funds probably landed sometime after 31st August.

I think the bank could sharpen up their transfer speed without me having to resort to paying them megabucks to do it.

I think the retailer could improve their online order progress tracking to reflect what is going on in real time and speed their email processing up a bit (some of it being done in a couple of hours, others being done in 3 days). I've had some emails with conflicting information. Some emails say I haven't paid / some say I have today!

Let's see when it turns up now.

Anti

macplaxton wrote:

Interesting points but you're peddling a few myths here:

They take too long - Only if you choose to use the low cost slow-boat service. You can make a same day/next day payment, but you'll be charged accordingly by the bank.

unsecure - Bank transfers are secure. Certainly more secure than paying by fake cash / bouncy cheques / stolen cards / PayPal.

hardly any fo the rights that you would if you used a CC. Yes, you do have certain buyer safeguards with a CC, but they also have to be paid for (stamp duty, commissions, etc) All being stuck onto the price you pay. And as for chip 'n' pin, that's just for the banks' benefit.

The problem here isn't totally the retailers making. If the retailer receives the money, I get the goods. The money isn't lost, either it hasn't been sent or is unallocated against the order. It's hassle anyone could do without, but I've never had hassle to date with getting money securely from A to B by this method. I've always used it with vendors I trust.

Im with BOI and they take a age to transfer money, especially inetrnationaly. both incoming, and outgoing. 25 days it once took to clear a transfer from wales. And that was comming from HSBC.

By unsecure i mean if you transfer into someones own personal account you have very few rights if they decide to not send the goods and close down the account. For all you know it could be a fake named account.

Same as above, atleast with a CC if you buy a product and it never arrives you can do a " claw back " which means if a product turn up damaged or not at all, the bank can just take your money back from them. You are also covered by insurance for items over 100€ ( i think its 100€ anyway )

Im not trying to cause a arguement with you, i was just trying to list the reasons i dont do a bank transfer.

Keep us informed anyway.