Lost my place in line due to Elements incompetence

ARGH!!! More frustration! I was sent a message from the webmaster:

Credit card changes can be made by calling the credit card hotline at 773-907-5740

That is fine and dandy except when I called in earlier I was told that my ONLY option is to cancel the order and make a new order. This is apparently NOT the case.

Now what do I do. I am on hold with customer support to try to fix the problem. It does not seem too hopeful though since I would have to get a now canceled order reinstated.

Lesson 2 learned: Don't let them cancel you order call the credit card hotline at 773-907-5740 to get it changed. Just a note though the charge to the original MUST fail before you can change the number even though you know it’s going to fail there is nothing they can do about it. Also apparently you can only change the card number and expiration all other information must remain (billing information and name on card)

wait - um, why would you need to provide a new card number or anything if they already billed you/charged you for the item? i mean when you preordered it, didnt you get charged? i did..

so theyve got the money, all they need to do is ship it out, no questions asked.. right?

Jayesh Chandiramani wrote:

 

wait - um, why would you need to provide a new card number or anything if they already billed you/charged you for the item? i mean when you preordered it, didnt you get charged? i did..

so theyve got the money, all they need to do is ship it out, no questions asked.. right?

In many cases (like mine) newark.com made a US$1 charge to validate the credit card number + expiration date and then credited back US$1.  They will charge the full amount when the order ships.  If the credit card expiration changes in the mean time then the charge will bounce and (with luck) Newark will contact the buyer to get new credit card information.

oh alright - if they didnt charge you upfront then yeah i get it..

BUT element14 charged me the full amount at the time of the preorder.. so am i safe or not? my "estimated" ship date is june 25th and the card is valid till end june..

Success! I got my original order reinstated! So in an effort to hopefully prevent this from happening to anyone else: When you order is ready to be shipped they will charge your credit card. If the charge fails the status of the order will change to credit review. They cannot change the credit card information until this happens (even if you know it’s going to fail). At this point you MUST call the credit department at 773-907-5740. They will change the information. There are limits as I stated before you can only change the card number and expiration the billing information and name must stay the same. Under no circumstance should you let anyone at element tell you that you need to cancel your order and reorder.

I am much less angry now.  I think there are still some flaws in the process but I am willing to work with them as long as they are making an effort to make it right.  Good luck you those of you that are in a similar expiration situation.

Btw for thoes keeping track I order on march 1 and my conf num is 171121

hey thats great to hear.. i just have a question though - didnt they charge your credit card the full amount when you placed your preorder (or maybe even a little while later) ?

cause i got charged a day after i placed my pre order.. and im hoping they stick to the june 25th ship date so im in the green zone

They did not charge my card when I placed the order. They attempted to charge once the Pi was ready to go. It’s odd that they would have different procedures for similar orders.

Jayesh

Nope. No charge on the CC until it ships (in the US at least.) I ordered 10 P.M. 2-29-12 CST, billed and shipped 5-29-12, and recieved it about an hour ago.

Nate Chapman wrote:

 

I've always wondered the same thing.  How can other companies produce 100,000s and the pi barely 10,000. 

You're forgetting that you can't just walk into the facory where Apple makes their stuff and say: "Hey can you drop those tablets you're making, and make some raspberry pi's for us?"

The bigger the factory, the slower they move.

Also, production has been ramped up. The batch of 10k that started in january was delivered in april. By the end of june there will be over 10k per week getting delivered.

Apple has enough money to tell a factory: "We've got the iphone 5 comining DDDDDD. We need XXXX devices on launch day, we'll finalize the design no later than YYYY, can you make them?"

The factory will quote a price, and Apple will have to pay that, even if they don't end up having the design ready in time. Or when they don't sell, apple will have a lot of expensive PBCs lying around.

Those things were simply not within reach of the RPI foundation. They could finance and take the risks on 10k units.

Now Farnell and RS are ramping up production and so far they are not having to take the risk of not selling them. (except for the first 10k batch).

But they have to be careful too. Suppose there are exactly 230000 people in the world who want one. Suppose they ordered 10k then 30k, then 100k and then 300k. Until they put in that order for the bigger batch of 300k units they would still see "huge demand" which exceeds supply. And if they manage to make $3.5 (10%) on each raspberry pi, the whole profit would be drained into "lots of unsold 'pies" after they get their 300k shipment.

So business wise they have to be careful not to get ahead of themselves.

And what if say "samsung" puts out a SOC that has the same features as BCM2835 but doesn't require THREE external regulators, has ethernet, analog audio and VGA onchip so a breakout board for that chip only costs about $15? How much interest would remain for the 'pi after that comes out? All "registered interest" will not turn into orders when that starts shipping!

In short: They ARE ramping up production. They cannot blindly order half a million units and hope they will all sell due to business reasons and production capacity reasons.

John Beetem wrote:

 

According to this Element 14 discussion, if your credit card expires Newark will contact you and give you a chance to update your information.  I hope this works, as I am in this situation.  Given that I never got the e-mail to tell me about updated ship dates, I'm a tad dubious that I'll get the credit card e-mail.  It's really silly that you can't update credit card information at newark.com.

Mine shipped 6 June 2012 :-)  Most recent ship estimate at newark.com was 14 June 2012.  I didn't receive a credit card e-mail, so I guess the validation they did when I ordered 4 March 2012 was good enough (card number unchanged, expiration date changed).  According to UPS, my RasPi has shipped from South Carolina to North Carolina, its first leg on its journey to California via UPS Wagon Train.