This way you get the best of both worlds, you can use it like a credit card, and your wife won't get the bill.
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| Mosquitobites New Member 5 Posts 5/02 |  Posted - May 13 2002 : 8:09PMJust a warning for those out there who are in a situation similar to me. I need to buy DVDs with a check or Money Order, because my wife pays the credit card bills. As long as she doesn't see it and I don't spend too much money, she doesn't care. This was my first online purchase for that reason. I've bought around 50 discs in stores, but the selection and price are lacking there. Anyway, AdultDVDEmpire is one of the few retailers to allow you to buy DVDs online without a credit card. They have a somewhat restrictive policy, but that's ok, I'm not complaining about the policy. Basically, the policy says that they won't ship anything until the check clears, once you make an order there are no changes, and the order is sent as one shipment. That's fine and dandy, I agreed to those restrictions, and have no problem with them. Here's where the problems start: First, since they only ship when all the discs are in, I made a point of ordering only DVDs that were listed as in stock. There was the started warning that if something becomes out of stock before the check clears, they'll wait for that before shipping. A reasonable risk, I thought. Unfortunately 2 of the discs I ordered were immediately changed to Out of Stock after I finished checking out! I could understand if they were sold out a day or two later, but it was clear that they weren't really in stock when I put them in my cart. Annoying, but not too bad. I figured I'd wait. After close to a week, I noticed that the Out of Stock DVDs kept changing. Discs that were in stock at one point were out the next day, and another disc that had been in stock wasn't available! Argh, they weren't even holding the discs for me! If they didn't hold the discs, when would I ever get my DVDs? Third, I sent an e-mail making an offer to pay for the extra shipping to send out the DVDs seperately, since the in stock/out of stock kept changing. I said I understood the policy, and wasn't upset that they wouldn't change it for me. What I was upset about was I also asked that they try to provide an estimate of when the discs would be in stock, and if they could hold the ones that were in stock. What pissed me off is that they sent a form e-mail back saying "If you'd just send credit card info, we'd process your order now", along with the check policy. Argh! again, I understand the policy, can't you at least tell me when they might all be in? Last, they finally had everything in stock. Great! All the problems were forgotten, and 3+ weeks after ordering and getting stonewalled by Customer Service was going to end. Nope. 4 days later, my order hadn't shipped. They clearly say on their site "orders ship within 24 hours". Not "might ship", or "Most orders ship". So I sent another e-mail to customer service. I got an e-mail back saying that my order would ship in 4 more days! After paying for the fast shipping, I'm annoyed that it will take more than a week for them to get around to putting my order in the mail after waiting about 3 weeks for them to just get stock. To summarize: 1. The "In Stock" and "On Order" stuff on their site is a lie. Less than 5 minutes after placing an order 2 of the 6 discs changed to On Order. 2. They don't hold items that are in stock for someone who is waiting to complete a shipment. 3. Customer Service didn't answer 2 of the 3 questions in my e-mail to them. They simply reprinted the policy, and didn't make any attempt to help answer 2 questions. 4. They claim to ship within 24 hours, but it really takes over a week. DOH! Now I just checked again, and one of the 6 DVDs is On Order again! I'm never getting my DVDs. AHHH!!!!!! Mother @#$!@^!&*@&! I was mildly annoyed until I saw that, now I'm really pissed. [Link] |
Bill  All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - May 13 2002 : 8:58PM This way you get the best of both worlds, you can use it like a credit card, and your wife won't get the bill. [Link] |
| Mosquitobites New Member 5 Posts 5/02 | Posted - May 13 2002 : 9:58PM [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - May 13 2002 : 10:22PM DVD Empire's inventory is "real-time". This means that if there is one unit in stock, and I place an order for that disc, that one unit will be immediately allocated to my order and the stock status will immediately be changed either to "Out Of Stock" if there is no outstanding order for this disc or "On Order" if they have already re-ordered this disc. I had this happen to me once, where the disc was "In-Stock" when I ordered it (that's how it showed on my order confirmation), then a few minutes later, it was "Out of Stock". My order was shipped the next day, so I must have bought the last one. I don't know about the part about not holding "in-stock" discs while waiting for others to complete a shipment because with DVD Empire's free shipping, I will just create multiple orders if something is out of stock. The first order will only contain the in-stock titles. The other order(s) will be for each title on backorder. This way they will ship as soon as they become available. i realize that this methodology would be a pain in the ass with a check, but with a credit (or debit) card, it's no big deal. Even though they don't charge the card until the discs are shipped, I would just enter all of the charges into my check register as if you wrote checks for each individual order, and they wouldn't be cahsed for a while. I understand your problem with the Customer Service replies, but my guess is that they don't want to encourage check payments. It's definitely more labor intensive for them than credit cards are. As far as the shipping delay, this one really surprises me. I have always had good experiences with the speed of DVD Empires delivery. It's possible that there was a problem with one of the discs when the order was being picked at the warehouse. At my company, we refer to these as "unshippables". This is when all of the systems think that inventory is available, but when the order is picked, there is something wrong that prevents the order from being able to be fulilled. This is usually caused by either the picker finding that the last unit is broken or someone who had previously picked the wrong disc for a previous order, so when the picker goes to get the disc that you ordered, it is not there. This is not the fault of the inventory or order processing system, it's a human error (mispick) or an unavoidable error (hidden damaged inventory). [Link] |
| Empire Man AdultDVDEmpire.com 165 Posts 12/00 | Posted - May 14 2002 : 11:05AM
Edited by - empire man on May 14 2002 [Link] |
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| Mosquitobites New Member 5 Posts 5/02 | Posted - May 20 2002 : 4:58PM By the way, I'm sure Adult DVD Empire has great service for people who pay with credit cards, as they seem to have a good reputation on this site. Also, thanks to Empire Man, who looked into my order. I feel a bit better now that I understand that part of the problem was simply a reasonable part of the check policy that's not stated on the site. I'm not trying to knock DVD Empire in general, just warning anyone who might consider ordering with a check. [Link] |
| Mosquitobites New Member 5 Posts 5/02 | Posted - May 22 2002 : 5:45PM Mostly due to the rude customer service responses I won't be shopping with them again, and hopefully others will at least be aware that paying by check is more of a hassle than they currently outline on their site. I certainly learned my lesson... [Link] |
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