Pre-Order Frustration with Warner Brothers
 

All I wanted to do is purchase the vinyl album of 24 Karat Gold, along with the Deluxe bundle. Simple enough, right?

After several attempts, and several cancellation emails, I tried to order it on Amazon, which appears to just route it to Warner Brothers. Thus, I just received another cancellation notice. What the fu*k is going on?

At this point, I have no idea if I'm going to receive anything! I've never experienced this level of ineptness before. Of course, Warner Brothers, or Wiener Brothers, as I now refer to them, doesn't provide phone customer service. I just sent them an email, but have no confidence that I'll get any help from them. This really sucks! Not to mention it's no help to the marketing effort to sell her album.

Warner will re-authorize your payment ever week or so until it ships. If at *any time* the funds are not available, they will cancel the order. This has happened to some other people, so it's just a thought.

Music Direct has the vinyl, too.

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-244948-...vault-2lp.aspx

This is so annoying. I don't see why they don't just process the payment now.

The answer is simple - make sure you have the money in the bank.

Or use PayPal, where you will know FOR SURE that the money has been transferred just the one and only time.

mine processed right away.
i ordered from the US site.
paid with regular credit card deets ... via visa
guess it depends on your bank

You are richer...
 

I tried to purchase all of the deluxe bs the first day and was unable to do so and blocked and whatever. Then it dawned on me that I fell in love with a voice. I pre-purchased from iTunes and I live in peace knowing that I will hear the voice I love and the rest of my money is in my bank account.

Money is not an issue for me; my bank account is healthy! I'm just worried; I want confirmation that I'm going to receive what I ordered. I hope to get a response to my email. Otherwise I will hound them as much as I can. This bull**** is just unacceptable. I never had to deal with a re-authorization process.

They keep debiting and crediting my checking account and it's really annoying. Just take the money out. Hard to keep track of your balance when you have to remember to keep over 70 bucks in there. Yeah, I'm a down to a dollar kind of bank person. :shrug:

As Karma said, its their asinine pre-authorization process. I just got mine settled because they canceled mine two days before my pay day. The money was there when I placed the order, an unexpected bill popped up so the balance on my checking account went down, they popped another preauthorization a few days later and bam cancellation of order email. I have the bundle with the limited number of lithographs so I was ticked! But luckily come pay day I put the almost 80 dollars into my second checking account so it wouldn't get touched and they could do their pre-authorization every week until it ships. Problem solved. But its such an inconvenience to us the consumer. I understand your frustration trust me.

I'm still confused.What do I have to do assure my order is going through? Just wait? As I said, I have plenty of money in my checking account.

Please don't gloat!:(

That should have been my experience.I have no f*cking idea the status of my order. This is such bull****.

:sorry:
just stating an experience
my bank is VERY on the ball with my transactions
but i shop so much online that they don't worry about me too much anymore

i would second the paypal option. but i don't remember having that option when checking out at WB. you can link your credit or savings account or just regularly keep $$ in the paypal account and you'd have no probs :nod:

you will get your order. think positive please. :xoxo:

I want to stay positive, but I have no reason to do so. I just made several attempts to message them through their customer service email, and all attempts failed. It's so ****ing ridiculous. I've been so frustrated, stressed and never had to work so hard to make an online purchase. This is so wrong! I feel like a helpless ****ing idiot! Thanks a lot Warner Douche Bag Brothers. It's been so great to be unable to do business or communicate with you.

I can understand the frustration BS with WBM .Atlease they should let the costumers know whats going on with their orders.

I worked at a couple of fulfillment centers over the years that done fulfillment work for big name companies and there were alot of screw ups on orders with office typo errors.I would not put it past WBM with those problems.

They waited to last minute to strike my CC the day they shipped my IYD DVD package.
My CC want through the process fine the day I ordered the IYD DVD and 24K Gold album.

I check my transactions last week as I payed up my CC bill and there was no charges of the $105 and change for Stevie's new 24K Gold album which was purchased before my CC closing date.

I dont understand their way of conducting sales there.Nevermind holding on to my CC numbers for that length of time .

I rather go back the old way like when the music arrives at the record shop instead of this internet and mail order routine.

Are you sure? It really has nothing to do with the bank. WB sends a pre auth to your bank which then stays on your account for a few days, but then drops off since WB doesn't finish the transaction. Then WB submits another pre auth the next week.

I dont understand how come WB does not take the money right away like others do.I confused with the reasoning of it.

In all the transactions of commerce that I have ever made on the internet, I've used my debit card. If bank account did not have the funds,of course I would expect the order to be cancelled. That is reasonable. I have never had that issue, in the all the years I've made purchases online. If the money isn't there, the order would just be cancelled.

What is not reasonable is Warner Brothers' policy assuming customers don't have the funds, thus, instituting this ****ing abhorrent policy of pre-authorizing and immediately cancelling orders. WHF???

So if authorization takes place in some arbitrary way, am I going to now receive three orders because I made three attempts? What drives my blood pressure up is that I have no number to call, no human representative to consult. Warner Brothers is a an evil entity. They are my battle of the dragon. They suck! I will never deal with them again. I rather go through a third party. I think I need a heavy dose of Klonopin now.

I dont like their format of doing eCommerce .There should be rules and guidelines written for these companies.I think there is rules in each state with mail order and internet sales they supposed too comply by .Maybe somebody can chime in and fill us in on it. Speaking of building up my blood pressure I remember years ago that Ticketmaster was giving me BS and almost lost the shows.Nevermind loosing tickets too.I do have to give them credit on instant refunds if the shows is cancelled.

That why I like the old way of going to the record shop or Walmart and purchasing the music in person .I was never of a fan dealing with money online but these days is way of things.

I'm debating now if I should order another vinyl or wait and see if Best Buy have it in stock in October.I cant recall if Best Buy stocks vinyl in their stores.I know Best Buy will have a truck load of her CD's there.They had loads of her IYD DVD's after it was released.

I hope you get to the bottom of this crap.

Many companies don't bill for preorders until they send merchandise, including Amazon. I've been frustrated with this, too, especially because I used my new laptop (which isn't hooked up to my printer yet) so couldn't print my order. After sending three messages to WB, I didn't get resolution so kept after them until they helped me access my account--which shows the pre-order. (I was at wit's end with all of this until they finally helped me get my password reissued so I could do this).

After my experience, my guess is that college interns may be assigned to handle these accounts (or they're outsourced off-shore). They don't seem to read the messages very carefully--and only respond to parts of them. I kept sending messages until I got the information I needed from them (and then discovered part of what they told me was wrong!!).

My lesson: keep sending messages until they answer your questions and keep checking your WB account to ensure that your order is still there. I'm planning to check mine once a week until it's sent.

Hope that helps!

I used too work at fulfillment houses which one was did work for Amazon.They hire cheap temp help to process orders and even do the office work.Some workers are great and some have no brains and screw up peoples orders.

Yes I agree .Keep on their rear until they ship it out.

I'm a little paranoid about this now because I've decided to move, and my lease is up prior to shipping. So now I have to change my shipping address long after the order has been placed, and if they use my billing address each time they authorize card, I will need to change that too (which I will probably wait on until this order ships, just to avoid issues).

Interesting. The Supreme court is about to hear a lawsuit about Amazon workers suing for overtime, for the time they spent waiting in security checks before they could begin working in the warehouse.

Michele

Really sad to hear that about Amazon. I try to shop at brick and mortar stores as much as possible (mostly to preserve jobs in local communities) so use Amazon when necessary. Unfortunately, it's becoming harder to find many items in stores so we end up buying from them. It's disturbing to hear that they treat employees this way; hope the Court finds in employees' favor.

Hoursandhours: If you're moving, you probably have time to change your address through credit card company and WB before the SN releases are out. At least it looks fairly easy to update the profile on their website. It might be a good idea to have an electronic "paper trail" with emails through their customer service staff (whoever it is).

Does anyone know how they ship (is it USPS, UPS, or FedEx)? If it's USPS, it might be possible to put your mail on vacation hold (if the release dates are during the same timeframe).

Wow--who knew it would be so complicated just to order an album or CD???

Wow.I hope they will get payed.They were there on time on the property .The places I've worked at were private .One was a vender and fulfilled orders for Amazon and Target online and a couple other top name stores. the other did fulfillment for PCH Publishers Clearing House .PCH had their day in court over with they done to their customers .Its nothing new with big corporate playing games with their customers and their employees.

Walmart is another whole topic.

Yes . To come think about it .The company I worked at that did the PCH fulfillment had security at the doors .Some days it took some time getting into the building.Also as I remember that we shipped out WB CD's and VHS movies to PCH customers.

Believe me, I'm rear-ending them as much as I can, but yet I feel like I'm the one getting ****ed up the ass. My emails to their "concept" of customer service are being answered with little or no response. One response was robotic corporate speak that didn't address my issue at all, with no hint of empathy.

Warner Brothers are not my friends.

I hope everything gets straightened out for you PenguinHead! :)
I never dealt with WB online before but I'd be super pissed too if that happened to me. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I can't afford the bundle at the moment so I have to wait and buy the CD later.

I don't get it either but WB should do that if they're so worried about the money being there. Or they should just let people pre-order in the stores.
The whole cancel, un-cancel, cancel bit is pretty idiotic! And the lack of good customer service is appalling! :mad:

I got a confirmation of my address change and an updated shipment receipt from Warner Brothers today, less than 24 hours from my original email. Just thought I'd put that out there for balance in the reviews of their handling of stuff. This was the smoothest possible transition of the order I could have hoped for. :o

GOOD .Keep it up.PenguinHead.

This is so ludicrous and beyond my comprehension in why they are F^&%%^%^ around with peoples orders.

Apparently they dont want to do business and make good money .


Personally .I'm not a fan of big corporate operations.This goes for Cable,Phone, Corp Radio station ownerships and so on.

Thanks for the support. But I don't have much faith. I will try one more time. Otherwise, I hope I can buy the deluxe version from my local record store, but I really want the one with the booklet and extra photos. Maybe I can get it from a second party seller. I buy most of my music from Amazon, and have never had any issues. Warner F*cking Brothers (as I now refer to them) are evil mother*uckers. I will never again ever attempt to buy anything directly from them again. I will go through a third party.

I don't understand this concept of a company being worried if the money isn't there.If your paying it straight from a credit card or debit card, the money is there! If neither source is valid for some reason, the order won't go through! When did this system change? It's just ****ed up.

No problem PH .I dont like to see fans get screwed with the BS these companies pull.




Yes .What the heck.What are they thinking .Its like taking out a property mortgage or a car loan to buy some music or videos.

So far I haven't heard any news on my order.If it falls through .I will just go to Best Buy or Walmart to purchase the album.I will just loose out on the litho stuff.Walmart wont have the vinyl but they should have her CD there.Most of the small ma pa record shops are gone here because the big box stores killed them off years ago .So that leaves out special ordering albums and other stuff like I used to do years ago.

Maybe they should use something like PayPal and let PayPal or equiv worry about the credit card stuff.

Well, just got an email that they canceled my order for the bundle, and that was with a major credit card with next to nothing on it, so no need to worry about having the money in my bank account. Should I just reorder or should I call/email them?

Welcome to the cancel club!

I gave up. It was stressful and a waste of time. For years I've purchased lots of music/product on various internet sites using either my debit or credit card. I have never had any issues. Credit cards never require authorization; it's credit damn it! If you have a number to call, please share that with me, because it's conspicuously absent on their site. When I called 411, they could not find a customer service number. I reordered three times. No luck, same result.

Of three emails I wrote to them, only one was answered with the same bull**** and the issue was never solved. How the hell can they conduct business this way? I'm hoping I can purchase the deluxe version at my local record store. But I really want the bundled box with extra photos, as well as the vinyl record. I might have to buy them through another source, but that may mean paying more for them.

Warner Brothers store is a ****ing insulting joke. I pre-authorize that statement and cancel all future involvment with them. Stevie should find another label -- one that will not **** with her people.

I'm sorry to hear about the terrible service you have received from the Warner Bros. store. Based on these comments, I'm wondering what is in store for me. I ordered $105 worth of 24K Gold merchandise (vinyl and deluxe CD/litho bundles) on the first day of pre-orders. I didn't receive a confirmation of this order so had to email their customer service. I received a prompt reply with the confirmation. Thus far I am not yet in the "cancel club" but could be joining you all real soon.

If you want to order use pay-pal...It will be immediately charged to your account and the funds withdrawn...I have used this method with both the "IYD" DVD bundle and the "24K" bundle with no problems...

Longtime lurker here, never posted before but am going to about this issue. I just had my 24K order canceled due to lack of authorization. I bought it a month ago...I wrote them two emails. Afterwards I saw the little disclaimer, "your credit card will be authorized for the full amount once you confirm your order, but it will not be charged until your order ships. Some customers may see two listings on their bank statement, but the first is only an authorization, not a deduction."

This disclaimer does not actually address what they do. I used credit and no reasonable person would think they'd need to treat their credit card as if a bank account. In other words, spend two months calculating whatever amount ON THEIR CREDIT CARD.

I know I will likely have difficulty hearing back from them. What I am proposing is that we start to think about how to handle this issue publically. If I don't get fair responses within a week I am going to post my situation directly on Dave Stewart's and Stevie Nicks' social media pages (after all, this whole package buying is about upping her numbers and they aren't letting us up her numbers!) I would go so far as to call what WB is doing is illegal. I did not consent for the authorization to be repeated for two months. It's definitely fraudulent, as such a method of re-authorizing payments would allow them to tweak their production and output based on these weekly (I think folks have written above that they are weekly) checks. More importantly this practice is not directly addressed by their disclaimer.

If any of the lawyers I know were into this kind of law I'd float a class-action lawsuit idea. Sure, many of us haven't lost anything, but this practice should not be allowed. AT ALL. At the very least I think everyone to whom this happened, especially those using a credit card (because the disclaimer would indicate debit card users would need to calculate like a check's pending) should publically air the issue on the appropriate people's social media. Hashtag Liz Rosenberg if you have to...

Many of us have given THOUSANDS of dollars to this corporation over the years and this is not acceptable. I don't want to give them my money now and I am annoyed at Stevie Nicks the product/corporation. So this is just bad PR.

Exactly the same here.

Does this have more to do with individual banks and credit card companies than it does with Warner Brothers? I pre-ordered on day one, and it has been listed as a pending charge ever since. I'm sorry to hear about people's frustrations, but I wonder why none of these issues have happened to me.

I've wondered that, too. Someone above says otherwise but it is a good point to consider. My confirmation lasted a month until I guess I didn't have enough on my credit card to cover it during this pass at authorization. Ultimately WB is responsible for making that clear. The one sentence disclaimer AFTER one believes they've made a purchase does not cut it.

That's what I think the actual problem is, not whether we as consumers are doing our part by doing math weekly in anticipation of a convoluted corporate practice. I respectfully submit that we do not accept a policy that is not explained properly in advance and appears to violate privacy.

I also know this is "boxing at god"/"tilting at windmills" because I can remember reading about problems with WB and their merchandise all the way back over a decade ago when that one woman had a demos site and appeared to go bonkers at one point and disappear. I remember at the end she was ranting constantly about some horrible thing WB did with a Fleetwood Mac package...and I've seen it on this site over the 5 or so years of lurking.

Regardless, I know some of you have spent a lot of time and money over the years supporting FM and Nicks, more than I have, and it is plain unacceptable.

Well, I got mine sorted out. I had placed an order for vinyl on my debit card, which I've been carefully keeping track of the funds. It hasn't been close to any cause for concern, but I totally understand that that's not the case for everyone. That purchase has remained authorized so far.

I bought the cd combo using my mom's major credit card (it's a Christmas gift and she said it was easier if I just did the legwork myself haha). That one was canceled the other day, and I was totally perplexed as to how. Turns out the company sent my mom a new card with a new expiration date and verification number, which explains why the order canceled - that card was no longer valid. I just replaced the order using the new information, so hopefully all is well.

But, I agree. This seems unethical and ridiculous, and it's a shame that this is happening to so many people.