Beware of Beckett!

[SAllen2556]

Originally Posted by BobC

It just occurred to me what a crock of BS this answer you got is. If they have your credit card to charge, they could have simply waited till the order was ready to go to labeling and then run the charge through. It doesn't take hours or days to successfully run a credit card charge through, just a few minutes or so, at most. So in truth, there is no delay, unless they honestly believe that holding your money for 6 months or more is a perfectly justifiable reason for them not having maybe a 5 minute or so delay to run your CC through prior to the labeling. What they told you their reasoning was for charging you so many months in advance of finally doing the work you have been waiting for them to do is a blatant, bald-faced, BS lie.

It does however improve their cash flow, and also allows them to now invest your money they are holding and earn interest off of it. And we have all seen and heard how interest rates look like they may be starting to rise. Although not necessarily a huge revenue source for them, it is still your money that you could be earning some interest income on, or at least not incurring CC interest charges on, instead. Hell, even the federal government pays you interest when they take too long to get you your tax refund. Why should any TPG have a preferential interest or advantage over our own federal government?

And now, TPGs may use this Marx case to further justify collecting even more money, even farther in advance of them performing the work they are supposed to do. If anything, this actually works to de-incentivize them to hurry up and get people's cards back to them. What's their rush, they already have your cards, and now your money. You can't suddenly do something else or go anywhere else. At least not without it likely costing you even more.

The problem is you can't rely on a credit card being good 6 months after you have the number in hand. I run credit cards often, and in today's world, people's credit cards are flagged for fraud much more frequently than in the past. If I had a big order I'd feel like I had to run the card now and not risk the chance of the card not being good 6 months from now. It might not even be legal to run a credit card 6 months after you get the number, or at the very least, ok with the credit card company. Even as a customer, I wouldn't feel comfortable having a company keep my credit card number around for 6 months before running it.