QVC Easy Pay Beware charging twice

[DramaCat]

really hope you get this sorted out. Will be very interested to hear how their customer service will deal with repaying your bank charges. Another reason to wean myself off all things QVC related!

 

[athena69]

I've been promised the money returned to my account this afternoon, all bank charges refunded and £50 of QVC credits......

 

[Graham]

The bank can't / won't do anything for a month, I rang QVC and asked for the Press Office they then tried to transfer me to their PR department, no answer said she would get them to call, needless to say they haven't. Could not have happened at a worse time, sister arrived from USA yesterday, thank goodness for the Provident, not so good with their interest.

About time QVC took this site seriously, with over 1.8 million page views a month and almost at our 10th birthday I am sick of treating you their customers like second rate customers.

 

[Pinkpussycat]

Why have they treated you so shabbily G when they have proved from Athena's that they can sort things out promptly when they want to?? I hope you get a call tomorrow morning and QVC immediately refund all duplicate payments, plus bank charges, plus any loan costs that you have incurred over their incompetence. I also hope they give you the same consideration and credit your QVC account too....
Please keep us updated.

 

[sheepdog]

Its one of those situations where having a credit card gives you that bit more flexibility than using a debit card. Ironically I had a converstation with my bank about debit/credit card use where I said I tend to use my credit card now and use my debit card for the odd shop purchase and mainly cash withdrawls. I will state that a) I am disciplined enough to control my spending and b) I pay off the monthly bill in one go. Abusing it in your favour is a skill worth learning!

But said it before, the online account system by QVC is utter rubbish and doesn't really tell you anything other than its ordered and shipped/returned. It really does need an overhaul and to give an example, the ebuyer system works really well in detailing your orders. Whereas on the other hand, amazon's for all its dominance isn't that much better than QVC's.

 

[Toril]

I've been promised the money returned to my account this afternoon, all bank charges refunded and £50 of QVC credits......

I've just checked my account again and nothing's been refunded, but I suppose it's still early days.

When I order something from anywhere like QVC, Play, Amazon etc. I write what I've ordered and the price and the date it was ordered in a notebook. I then cross it off when I've received the goods. If it's on easy pay I also make a note of when the EP will finish.

What I didn't expect was for the final Easy pay amount to be taken out twice and an item which I've already received to be paid for twice either. Luckily the total is only about £40, so nothing on the scale of Graham's, but I'd rather have the money in my bank account than in theirs.

I don't have a credit card, just a debit one, but if the money is not back in my account by the end of the week then I will ring Nationwide to see if they can do anything.

What's the betting though that if QVC had accidentally paid us refunds twice they'd have been on the phone, within minutes, to thousands of customers instead of our having to contact them to ask what was going on. Computers are programmed by people so how they can blame a machine is beyond me. And have they contacted those affected with an apology or explanation??? NO! No surprise there then ........

(Takes deep breath and puts out positive thoughts............ :mysmilie_474

 

[silversequin]

this has put the fear on me! I used to be really organised re easy pays and write all the intallments on my calender, including the amount, what I had actually bought and when the final payment was due. Then got a bit busy and forgot to do it. I totally agree that the online account should give full details of how much and when the payments will be taken. It's obviously in their system so there must be some software they can get to copy details into customer's individual accounts.

 

[dottiebird]

My situation is the opposite, as about 3 times now I have wanted to pay by a one off payment, and yet they take it out in instalments instead........total mess up in my eyes. I think they want to get a grip in their Accounts Department. Still it isn't as bad as what has happened to Graham......that is BAD.

 

[Snowstorm]

Snowstorm, i was in the same postion re easi-pays a few months or so ago and have started keeping a note(i bought a small notebook in Asda -29p) i take a note when i buy and how many easi-pays are involved, i tick off when the money is taken from my account - this also encourages me to check my account. So sorry to read about Graham and co's situation re double payments being taken - i hope all is sorted out and QVC reimburse re any sundry payments(bank charges etc). For such a big organisation this sort of thing should never happen - please please everybody check your accountsxx

Yes I am going to start recording everything and will now keep a close eye on things. It would never have occurred to me to think items may have been deducted twice

 

[Snowstorm]

I have to say I'm also slightly concerned as I've always trusted QVC to just take the payment for easy pays as agreed - ashamed to say,that I don't keep such a close eye,that I possibly should.This has really put me off using easypay.

Me too! I always put my faith in the organisation and trusted all was being done to make my life easier!

 

[Pinkpussycat]

I've never bothered to check!!

I wonder how many times this has happended to God knows how many accounts!!??

Are QVC proactive in contacting their customers when they have made a balls up on their accounts?? Or if you don't notice and contact them, do they just keep the money??

I really think we need an official statement from QVC over this. :thinking:

 

[klarionthewitchboy]

What I find interesting about all this is that it's supposed to have happened on the 12th, potentially impacting on easy payments up to the 15th: yet I don't remember any messages being given by QVC either on screen or online to say that there had been problems with their accounting system.

Neither did QVC stop the easy pay system while they investigated, potentially ensuring more and more customers had duplicate payments taken from them.

Is THIS good customer service? To know that your accounting system is not taking payments correctly, but to keep on going regardless?

If people had not been proactive and contacted QVC directly about this today (and please bear in mind that today is the 17th - 5 days after things started going wrong), would QVC have done anything about this at all?

This is not a minor matter. Regardless of the amounts involved, QVC is breaking its sales contracts with its customers if it decides to take more money for products than customers have agreed to pay.

We all make mistakes, but QVC should be announcing problems with payments as soon as they occur, not just owning up when customers query them. I wouldn't trust them to boil a kettle, never mind run a proper accounting system.

 

[Graham]

Totally agree there should be an announcement on every break and on the website.

 

[doglover]

Just checked my bank account and I have been charged twice for lip glosses that I ordered last week. Just off phone and they said they are aware of the problem and should be fixed in next few days. Luckily it is not a large amount of money but just enough to knock me into overdarft if not fixed soon, boo!!

 

[klarionthewitchboy]

Should this thread be stickied so that it doesn't get lost in the middle of the other threads?

This is rather important, and could well affect many ST users.

Just a thought!

 

[Snowstorm]

Should this thread be stickied so that it doesn't get lost in the middle of the other threads?

This is rather important, and could well affect many ST users.

Just a thought!

I think that is an excellent idea. I for one have changed what I shall be doing on the strength of what I have read today. Really important for others to be aware and not just make assumptions that all is hunky dory!!

 

[Snowstorm]

Just checked my bank account and I have been charged twice for lip glosses that I ordered last week. Just off phone and they said they are aware of the problem and should be fixed in next few days. Luckily it is not a large amount of money but just enough to knock me into overdarft if not fixed soon, boo!!

That is not the point though is it. If they aware it should be sorted promptly not in the next few days or so

 

[sheepdog]

What I find interesting about all this is that it's supposed to have happened on the 12th, potentially impacting on easy payments up to the 15th: yet I don't remember any messages being given by QVC either on screen or online to say that there had been problems with their accounting system.

Neither did QVC stop the easy pay system while they investigated, potentially ensuring more and more customers had duplicate payments taken from them.

Is THIS good customer service? To know that your accounting system is not taking payments correctly, but to keep on going regardless?

If people had not been proactive and contacted QVC directly about this today (and please bear in mind that today is the 17th - 5 days after things started going wrong), would QVC have done anything about this at all?

This is not a minor matter. Regardless of the amounts involved, QVC is breaking its sales contracts with its customers if it decides to take more money for products than customers have agreed to pay.

We all make mistakes, but QVC should be announcing problems with payments as soon as they occur, not just owning up when customers query them. I wouldn't trust them to boil a kettle, never mind run a proper accounting system.

Ah now this is where things differ from realtime. I'm not defending QVC here just speaking from experience from the back end .

Given that the problems lie in easypay not one-off's the chances are that the payments are processed in a batch. That may or may not be in QVC's control and depending on the time of the batch run, that may not show up for several hours. For example if the payment is done at 10pm then the problem will probably be noticed the next day when either the customer complains or when the staff get the reports the next morning. You know the ones where your card isn't valid etc.

Now, given that a fault has been recorded let's say a group of people are fixing the underlying issue and ready for the next batch run the following evening. The fix fails and another fix is attempted till, which it seems is 3 times before its called to a halt. Then because of SLA's the refund process isn't immediate and may be caused by the credit card company or other factors in returning what seems to them legitimate requests. I'll add at this point that because there is a working process in place to refund, someone may have made the decision to continue the run as the risk unfortunately isn't theirs at this point in time. Conversely, the problem may be with the processor and QVC is taking the flack.

As for stopping the system, I'd disagree. It may be the case that the actual fault is a dodgy character somewhere that the parsing system doesn't know how to cope with. And yes, I do fault finding with data issues like this and believe me, a space or a full stop can break the system because somewhere along the line it hasn't been dealt with properly and sometimes, its just a one-off. Not eliminating human, computer issues/IT infrastructure either. On occasion, it can take days to find the source which can be caused by a small change on the system. I digress slightly but we wouldn't make a UK wide announcement saying we've got a failure and stop everything till we fix it as the affected user base is known. If we did that we'd destroy our reputation let alone the client who has to deal with impact!

 

[Snowstorm]

Ah now this is where things differ from realtime. I'm not defending QVC here just speaking from experience from the back end .

Given that the problems lie in easypay not one-off's the chances are that the payments are processed in a batch. That may or may not be in QVC's control and depending on the time of the batch run, that may not show up for several hours. For example if the payment is done at 10pm then the problem will probably be noticed the next day when either the customer complains or when the staff get the reports the next morning. You know the ones where your card isn't valid etc.

Now, given that a fault has been recorded let's say a group of people are fixing the underlying issue and ready for the next batch run the following evening. The fix fails and another fix is attempted till, which it seems is 3 times before its called to a halt. Then because of SLA's the refund process isn't immediate and may be caused by the credit card company or other factors in returning what seems to them legitimate requests. I'll add at this point that because there is a working process in place to refund, someone may have made the decision to continue the run as the risk unfortunately isn't theirs at this point in time. Conversely, the problem may be with the processor and QVC is taking the flack.

As for stopping the system, I'd disagree. It may be the case that the actual fault is a dodgy character somewhere that the parsing system doesn't know how to cope with. And yes, I do fault finding with data issues like this and believe me, a space or a full stop can break the system because somewhere along the line it hasn't been dealt with properly and sometimes, its just a one-off. Not eliminating human, computer issues/IT infrastructure either. On occasion, it can take days to find the source which can be caused by a small change on the system. I digress slightly but we wouldn't make a UK wide announcement saying we've got a failure and stop everything till we fix it as the affected user base is known. If we did that we'd destroy our reputation let alone the client who has to deal with impact!

Mmmm ok nevertheless, I shall watch and account for all my purchases very carefully from now on as the confidence I had is not there. Whilst you could argue that I should indeed do that anyway it still makes me nervous that this has happened so I guess it will make me more savvy in future!

 

[sheepdog]

Just for the record, I don't work for QVC or any of the credit card companies or processors!
And all I'll say is that the work involves an institution in most towns and cities ;-) Not that one either!

BTW I did check my account too the second I read this thread. Checking and recording the purchases is definitely worth doing anyway.