Adorama's Verification Process - HORRIBLE!

[TL24]

I decided to just cave in and order a spec'd out MBP 16 from Adorama last night for about $4k, everything went through smoothly and my CC was charged. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary right? So I go to bed, check my email this morning and I get an email from them stating my order was on hold for verification and that it would be cancelled if I didn't contact them?

So I call them this morning and sure enough they said my order was declined because they couldn't verify something? I asked what couldn't they verify? I mean my CC was charged, there's a pending transaction from them so what isn't passing verification that wasn't verified at check out? They couldn't tell me at all, nada, nothing. Just that they couldn't verify my information, they tried a few times and each time it came back declined.

I have NEVER experienced this before at any online retailer. I simply don't understand what is going on and I'm wondering if any of you have had this experience with them? My information on my CC is current with all of my other cards, I'm at a loss and any insight to WTF is going on with Adorama would be appreciated.

 

[JagdTiger]

I decided to just cave in and order a spec'd out MBP 16 from Adorama last night for about $4k, everything went through smoothly and my CC was charged. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary right? So I go to bed, check my email this morning and I get an email from them stating my order was on hold for verification and that it would be cancelled if I didn't contact them?

So I call them this morning and sure enough they said my order was declined because they couldn't verify something? I asked what couldn't they verify? I mean my CC was charged, there's a pending transaction from them so what isn't passing verification that wasn't verified at check out? They couldn't tell me at all, nada, nothing. Just that they couldn't verify my information, they tried a few times and each time it came back declined.

I have NEVER experienced this before at any online retailer. I simply don't understand what is going on and I'm wondering if any of you have had this experience with them? My information on my CC is current with all of my other cards, I'm at a loss and any insight to WTF is going on with Adorama would be appreciated.

They usually are pretty good, they have shipped my orders before.

 

[TL24]

They usually are pretty good, they have shipped my orders before.

That's good to know but why are they declining my order? It ain't about funds because the funds are there and there's more than enough to cover it of course. Everything is up to date, name, address, email and whatever else they need. It's all up to date so I'm at a loss as to why this is happening.

I dug around and it looks like others have had the same issue and they've also been left out in the dark as to WHY they were declined at the verification stage. This practice is stupid, if someone doesn't pass you need to tell them why that is.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I can only speculate. They may be trying to verify the delivery address (such as comparing your name to the name of known residents of that address), as sending a $4,000 item to a (presumably) residential address carries higher risk than the typical delivery.

They may or may not explain their reasons or methods, as publicizing security methods makes them more susceptible to being undermined. I'd suggest trying to place an order over the phone to see what happens.

 

[jerryk]

Just buy from Apple. Adorama and B&H have a no-return policy if you open the computer box unless there is an obvious failure. Apple is 14 day no questions asked return.

 

[TL24]

I can only speculate. They may be trying to verify the delivery address (such as comparing your name to the name of known residents of that address), as sending a $4,000 item to a (presumably) residential address carries higher risk than the typical delivery.

They may or may not explain their reasons or methods, as publicizing security methods makes them more susceptible to being undermined. I'd suggest trying to place an order over the phone to see what happens.

The thing is I just bought my wife a $3k laptop at Micro Center last week with the same CC and I had zero issues. I also just placed an order on NewEgg.com for some parts a few days ago and again no issues. To me it seems to be with Adorama and the 3rd party they use for verification, I have no idea why they're saying my verification was declined.
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Just buy from Apple. Adorama and B&H have a no-return policy if you open the computer box unless there is an obvious failure. Apple is 14 day no questions asked return.

Thing is I need the laptop asap and ordering from Apple will make me wait 2-3 weeks. Adorama has the spec I want in stock and I would have received it tomorrow with overnight shipping.

 

[jerryk]

The thing is I just bought my wife a $3k laptop at Micro Center last week with the same CC and I had zero issues. I also just placed an order on NewEgg.com for some parts a few days ago and again no issues. To me it seems to be with Adorama and the 3rd party they use for verification, I have no idea why they're saying my verification was declined.
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Thing is I need the laptop asap and ordering from Apple will make me wait 2-3 weeks. Adorama has the spec I want in stock and I would have received it tomorrow with overnight shipping.

Can you change the configuration to something Apple has in stock? IMHO, buying a custom order with top specs with Apple Silicon just around the corner may not be the wisest move.

 

[TL24]

Can you change the configuration to something Apple has in stock? IMHO, buying a custom order with top specs with Apple Silicon just around the corner may not be the wisest move.

Yeah, I completely understand that the Apple Silicon MBP's will be coming out but not the 16 version, not till Q2/Q3 of 2021 and that's an extremely long time to wait. I need a laptop now which is why this is my best option, also having the flexibility to run Bootcamp is a huge plus and not knowing how Apple will proceed going forward with that is a huge question mark for me. I also don't really want to test run their first try at this, I'd rather wait for their 2nd/3rd gen Apple Silicon before making the jump and I think the current MBP 16 will last me that long.

 

[matram]

I think we have seen the last intel system from Apple, from now one it will be only Apple Silicon. So yes that probably means we have to wait for Q3 2021 for the high end systems.

I think Apple historically have shown that they do not feel they need to upgrade a system if there is no substantial benefit.

 

[jerryk]

Yeah, I completely understand that the Apple Silicon MBP's will be coming out but not the 16 version, not till Q2/Q3 of 2021 and that's an extremely long time to wait. I need a laptop now which is why this is my best option, also having the flexibility to run Bootcamp is a huge plus and not knowing how Apple will proceed going forward with that is a huge question mark for me. I also don't really want to test run their first try at this, I'd rather wait for their 2nd/3rd gen Apple Silicon before making the jump and I think the current MBP 16 will last me that long.

Yeah, I can see your points. If you need X86 Windows to run some old program not sure Apple Silicon is ever going to work as well as a 16" MBP.

I am looking forward to AS since I find my 16" pretty bulky. I use my 2020 13" MBP more often. Looking forward to the rumored 14" AS MBP. Maybe it will even have a decent webcam.

Anyway, hope you get the CC mess sorted and get the system you want.

 

[jazz1]

I decided to just cave in and order a spec'd out MBP 16 from Adorama last night for about $4k, everything went through smoothly and my CC was charged. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary right? So I go to bed, check my email this morning and I get an email from them stating my order was on hold for verification and that it would be cancelled if I didn't contact them?

So I call them this morning and sure enough they said my order was declined because they couldn't verify something? I asked what couldn't they verify? I mean my CC was charged, there's a pending transaction from them so what isn't passing verification that wasn't verified at check out? They couldn't tell me at all, nada, nothing. Just that they couldn't verify my information, they tried a few times and each time it came back declined.

I have NEVER experienced this before at any online retailer. I simply don't understand what is going on and I'm wondering if any of you have had this experience with them? My information on my CC is current with all of my other cards, I'm at a loss and any insight to WTF is going on with Adorama would be appreciated.

I ordered an external hard drive from them, and then they would not honor the price. Lots of negative reviews online about Adorama, and I mean a LOT!

https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/new-york/profile/photography-equipment/adorama-camera-0121-2477/customer-reviews

 

[TL24]

Yeah, I can see your points. If you need X86 Windows to run some old program not sure Apple Silicon is ever going to work as well as a 16" MBP.

I am looking forward to AS since I find my 16" pretty bulky. I use my 2020 13" MBP more often. Looking forward to the rumored 14" AS MBP. Maybe it will even have a decent webcam.

Anyway, hope you get the CC mess sorted and get the system you want.

Thanks!

Unfortunately they did NOT resolve the issue and my order is definitely getting cancelled for unknown reasons. I even called Capital One and they were baffled as to WHY they did not approve, more than enough funds and zero issues on my account yet Adorama's 3rd party verification partner refused to allow my order to go through. Just ****ing ridiculous!
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I ordered an external hard drive from them, and then they would not honor the price. Lots of negative reviews online about Adorama, and I mean a LOT!

Yup this is my very first time ordering from them and it'll be my last, what a ****ing **** show!

 

[TiggrToo]

Thanks!

Unfortunately they did NOT resolve the issue and my order is definitely getting cancelled for unknown reasons. I even called Capital One and they were baffled as to WHY they did not approve, more than enough funds and zero issues on my account yet Adorama's 3rd party verification partner refused to allow my order to go through. Just ****ing ridiculous!
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Yup this is my very first time ordering from them and it'll be my last, what a ****ing **** show!

A few years back, about 8 weeks before the last US wide total eclipse, I ordered some eclipse viewers from them which were in stock.

They took my money instantly, then told me they were out of stock and would be getting more in within a week.

Two weeks later I was still waiting so I told then to cancel and they told me they couldn't - which point I called Discover and they reversed the charge, and I sourced us some viewers from a friend, instead.

Then, on the day of the eclipse they sent me an email as I was driving down to Cross Plains in Tennessee to get prime viewing, to tell me they were now back in stock and had now sent me them.

Naturally they billed my card again and refused to take them back and refund me. Again.

When I called then the next day, they eventually got a "one off special" agreement to refund me "this one time", and the crotchety old lady in customer support never did quite get why sending out eclipse viewers to be delivered AFTER the eclipse, really was a pretty dumb move.

The viewers arrived 2 full days after the eclipse.

I swore blind then that I'd never ever deal with those Jokers again.

 

[pommephone]

@TL24 if you want quick delivery, check to see if Amazon has the configuration you want. They have a pretty decent assortment of MBP configurations in their own Apple Store and from Expercom, an Apple Premier Partner. I ordered mine on a Monday and it was here on Wednesday. And the price was lower than Adorama or B&H.

 

[TL24]

@TL24 if you want quick delivery, check to see if Amazon has the configuration you want. They have a pretty decent assortment of MBP configurations in their own Apple Store and from Expercom, an Apple Premier Partner. I ordered mine on a Monday and it was here on Wednesday. And the price was lower than Adorama or B&H.

Didn't even think about that, I forgot that Amazon can have their stuff shipped from different vendors as well.

Thanks!

 

[pommephone]

Didn't even think about that, I forgot that Amazon can have their stuff shipped from different vendors as well.

Thanks!

Let us know if that works for you.

 

[TL24]

Let us know if that works for you.

Found the exact model that of course will be shipped out from Adorama BUT I lose the Apple Insider discount if I go through Amazon ($400) so that's a huge blow. I think I'm going to give Adorama one more shot once my money gets refunded back to my card. That $400 discount alone is worth another shot.

 

[nancym@ado]

I decided to just cave in and order a spec'd out MBP 16 from Adorama last night for about $4k, everything went through smoothly and my CC was charged. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary right? So I go to bed, check my email this morning and I get an email from them stating my order was on hold for verification and that it would be cancelled if I didn't contact them?

So I call them this morning and sure enough they said my order was declined because they couldn't verify something? I asked what couldn't they verify? I mean my CC was charged, there's a pending transaction from them so what isn't passing verification that wasn't verified at check out? They couldn't tell me at all, nada, nothing. Just that they couldn't verify my information, they tried a few times and each time it came back declined.

I have NEVER experienced this before at any online retailer. I simply don't understand what is going on and I'm wondering if any of you have had this experience with them? My information on my CC is current with all of my other cards, I'm at a loss and any insight to WTF is going on with Adorama would be appreciated.

Hi,

I was concerned after reading about your ordering experience with us. If you have a minute, can you please email me your order number so I can look into what happened here? My email is nancym@adorama.com

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Nancy Miller
Adorama CS Ambassador

 

[TL24]

Hi,

I was concerned after reading about your ordering experience with us. If you have a minute, can you please email me your order number so I can look into what happened here? My email is nancym@adorama.com

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Nancy Miller
Adorama CS Ambassador

Email sent.

 

[KaliYoni]

I have NEVER experienced this before at any online retailer. I simply don't understand what is going on and I'm wondering if any of you have had this experience with them?

I had the exact same thing happen to me recently with the Hewlett Packard online store. I wanted to buy a ~$500 monitor. Transaction goes through, credit card issuer approves transaction, then a few hours later an "Order Declined" email shows up.

What happened next was ridiculous. I spent the next three days fighting with HP to get them to take my money. I'm pretty sure HP, and it looks like Adorama, uses an outsourced service that is supposed to reduce fraud. What really sucks for customers is that you're treated like a criminal from the very beginning.

You have to play phone tag with a call center, most likely run by the outsourcer, that is clearly not located in North America. The call center reps want you to give them all sorts of additional information, probably to see if they can come up with matches in data broker searches. I carefully manage my online presence so the reps kept telling me my order could not be approved.

I would have cancelled the order but this monitor was not available from any major online retailers as a first party purchase. I ended up acting really angry with a rep on my last phone call...and for whatever reason, he agreed to approve my order.

Obviously, I'm not going to shop on HP's website ever again. I've never run into this problem buying from Apple or Amazon. Maybe companies that are highly focused on radically minimizing expenses think alienating customers is an acceptable tradeoff in order to save a few bucks on credit card chargebacks. Talk about short sighted!

 

[TL24]

I had the exact same thing happen to me recently with the Hewlett Packard online store. I wanted to buy a ~$500 monitor. Transaction goes through, credit card issuer approves transaction, then a few hours later an "Order Declined" email shows up.

What happened next was ridiculous. I spent the next three days fighting with HP to get them to take my money. I'm pretty sure HP, and it looks like Adorama, uses an outsourced service that is supposed to reduce fraud. What really sucks for customers is that you're treated like a criminal from the very beginning.

You have to play phone tag with a call center, most likely run by the outsourcer, that is clearly not located in North America. The call center reps want you to give them all sorts of additional information, probably to see if they can come up with matches in data broker searches. I carefully manage my online presence so the reps kept telling me my order could not be approved.

I would have cancelled the order but this monitor was not available from any major online retailers as a first party purchase. I ended up acting really angry with a rep on my last phone call...and for whatever reason, he agreed to approve my order.

Obviously, I'm not going to shop on HP's website ever again. I've never run into this problem buying from Apple or Amazon. Maybe companies that are highly focused on radically minimizing expenses think alienating customers is an acceptable tradeoff in order to save a few bucks on credit card chargebacks. Talk about short sighted!

That’s insane.

I just don’t understand what’s missing? Like they charged me, the transaction was approved by my credit card so it’s not like they don’t have their own fraud prevention either. There’s a ton of similar stories from other users who’s order we’re placed on hold and cancelled. Zero explanation as to why that is.

Adorama needs to look at other online retailers like Amazon, NewEgg and etc. They actually have legit verification processes in place that doesn’t make their customers feel like ****ing criminals or something.

 

[KaliYoni]

That’s insane.

I just don’t understand what’s missing? Like they charged me, the transaction was approved by my credit card so it’s not like they don’t have their own fraud prevention either. There’s a ton of similar stories from other users who’s order we’re placed on hold and cancelled. Zero explanation as to why that is.

Adorama needs to look at other online retailers like Amazon, NewEgg and etc. They actually have legit verification processes in place that doesn’t make their customers feel like ****ing criminals or something.

I think "fraud prevention" algorithms set to extremely aggressive levels generate a lot of these false positives. In my case, I was using a credit card I've held for decades and the shipping address was the same as the billing address. So no suspicions there, obviously. I might have received flags for new customer (that was the first time I placed an order with HP), for low data broker matches (I'm a big believer in single-use email addresses), and for low social media presence (I'm essentially a non-user of Facebook, Twitter, and the like).

You might find this story interesting:
"As consumers, we all have 'secret scores': hidden ratings that determine how long each of us waits on hold when calling a business, whether we can return items at a store, and what type of service we receive. A low score sends you to the back of the queue; high scores get you elite treatment."

I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too. (Published 2019)

Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients. Here’s how to get a copy of what they have on you.

www.nytimes.com

 

[TL24]

I think "fraud prevention" algorithms set to extremely aggressive levels generate a lot of these false positives. In my case, I was using a credit card I've held for decades and the shipping address was the same as the billing address. So no suspicions there, obviously. I might have received flags for new customer (that was the first time I placed an order with HP), for low data broker matches (I'm a big believer in single-use email addresses), and for low social media presence (I'm essentially a non-user of Facebook, Twitter, and the like).

You might find this story interesting:
"As consumers, we all have 'secret scores': hidden ratings that determine how long each of us waits on hold when calling a business, whether we can return items at a store, and what type of service we receive. A low score sends you to the back of the queue; high scores get you elite treatment."

I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too. (Published 2019)

Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients. Here’s how to get a copy of what they have on you.

www.nytimes.com

I can understand the aggressiveness but I'm pretty sure every other online retailer have the same precautions in place as well. Especially the biggest one like Amazon yet I've never had ANY issues ordering anything from them for as long as I can remember.

 

[jazz1]

As I've already written I had a horrible experience with this retailer. My current take-away is that they were happy to say your own your own, as they move on to the next sale. Now, after their bad customer service reputation once again rears its ugly head, they have reached out the the OP in these forums.

I truly wonder if the listed savings, offered to the OP, were nothing but a" bait and switch" pricing? That is exactly happened to me. I'm still seeing across the Internet horrible experiences with this retailer. Apple needs to look at this company if they are an authorized seller of Apple products.

 

[TL24]

As I've already written I had a horrible experience with this retailer. My current take-away is that they were happy to say your own your own, as they move on to the next sale. Now, after their bad customer service reputation once again rears its ugly head, they have reached out the the OP in these forums.

I truly wonder if the listed savings, offered to the OP, were nothing but a" bait and switch" pricing? That is exactly happened to me. I'm still seeing across the Internet horrible experiences with this retailer. Apple needs to look at this company if they are an authorized seller of Apple products.

Yeah I'm really not sure what's going on with Adorama, why put off so many new customers? I simply don't understand why Apple even decided to allow Adorama to be an authorized reseller when their customer service is nowhere near close to Apple. No company is perfect but all of my interactions with Apple has been excellent even during some misunderstandings.