NRM Model Deltic

Has everyone now received their 'standard' Deltic apart from me? The NRM debited my card almost two weeks ago but as yet no sign of the model!

Reply to
John East
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On 17/03/2008 19:07, John East said,

Ah well, there's plenty on eBay if you don't get yours. Just make sure you're sitting down when you see the prices people are prepared to pay...

Reply to
Paul Boyd

According to this thread you are by no means unique:

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Personally I think it's bloody disgraceful they're allowed to abuse credit cards in this manner. It's not as if they didn't have previous experience of late delivery from Bachmann.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

Send them a note demanding interest on the money they're borrowing from you. If they demur, threaten small-claims court. That should get their attention. ;-)

Reply to
Wolf K.

I'm waiting too... :-(

Ian J.

Reply to
Ian J.

I'm still waiting but they only took the money from my account last week.Today I rang them and was told I should get my loco either by the end of this week or early next week. It stll irritates when companies take the cash and don't send the goods straight away. Moggie.minor

Reply to
John W.Robertson

John W.Robertson wrote: [...]

Well yes, I understand, but "ship straight away" is a rather elastic concept, you know. Think through the process. Your order is one of many. Each credit card transaction must be authorised by the card issuer before a shipping order is sent to the warehouse. You're used to almost instant authorisation at a POS terminal, but it can take quite a while if it's done by hand, as I suspect it is at the NRM. Ie, whoever is handling the mail orders fills out all the charge slips, then gets to use a POS to do a whole whack of them at once, or else has to use the phone and confirms each transaction by pushing buttons. I suspect that the NRM's mail order department is a single clerk. Well, perhaps two - one to do the paper work, and one to pack and address the parcels. Not a super-quick process, IOW. So my guess is that your parcel didn't get out of the building until next day at the earliest, and then of course it's subject to the vagaries of Royal Mail. So a week or ten days from card charge to delivery is not too bad in those circumstances.

OTOH, charging a card and then not shipping for several weeks is a definite no-no. Over here, you must say when you charge the card for a mail order. I do so on the day I ship, unless otherwise arranged with the customer.

HTH

Reply to
Wolf K.

"Wolf K." wrote

The NRM have a POS machine, so there is no manual handling of these transactions.

However, there is only one or two people handling this entire operation, so some delays are to be expected, although I still maintain they should not debit the pruchaser's car until the goods are actually ready for despatch.

They're also using a 48-hour courier service, so 'delayed in the post' is not a valid excuse.

Just to rub salt in the wound - mine arrived a fortnight ago.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

I think it's a tad unlikely that they would manually processing the cards (i.e on old fashioned paper slips), since they have card facilities for entry etc. Manual processing, as in pressing buttons on the card machine (that's how we do it), takes no longer than swiping/chiping (bar a bit of button pressing), so I doubt the problem is there.

More likely is the overall software they are using to handle sales. Some systems will get authorisation, but not actually process the transaction until some criteria is met. One of our suppliers does this, our account being debited often several weeks after we think we've paid for somthing, which is a pain. I suspect what has happenend at the NRM is that all the cards have been queued until the purchase order has been booked in, then it has done them all in one go automatically, not allowing for the time available to the (presumambly limited) staff to actually do "goods inwards" and packing. A bit of a c*ck-up/systems limitation rather than anything sisnister I suspect.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
beamendsltd

I had a reply to my email today:

Dear John,

Thanks for your email. The Deltic Models are being dispatched in the order that they were ordered so it is true that people have already received theirs.

Rest assured that your order has been dealt with and delivery by Parcel Force is estimated within two weeks. Sorry for the delay in this.

All the best,

Howard Spencer Mosley

NRM

So it is not being sent by a courier, but dear old Parcel Force. I have sold a few spare models on ebay (and no I am not selling my Deltic!)and if it took me upwards of 4 weeks from receiving the cash I would be rightly criticised! I applaud the NRM initiative in the production of the model but they should have been prepared to handle the mail orders. After all they have received a quarter of a million pounds (of which

12500 is postage) plus about another 80K for the limited edition and while it is not all profit of course, it is certainly poor customer service.
Reply to
John East

"John East" wrote

Mine most definitely was shipped by courier and not Parcel Force.

Why on earth would they ship by Parcel Force when first class letter mail is generally cheaper on a single loco shipment.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

It's actually very difficult for them to do otherwise without breaking the terms of their contract with the card companies.

The idea that retailers should not take money from a credit card until they are ready to dispatch the goods, and that if they do not it is because of their poor customer service, is almost always false. In reality, the majority of small to medium-sized retailers (and the NRM would fall in this category as far as distance sales are concerned - most of their card transactions will be over-the-counter to people visiting the premises, which requires entirely different methods of authorising the payment) have little alternative but to take payment at the time of order as they have no legal and contracually permissible alternative.

Mark

Reply to
Mark Goodge

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:24:39 -0000, "John Turner" said in :

Insurance? Discounts?

Guy

Reply to
Just zis Guy, you know?

"Mark Goodge" wrote

My contract with HSBC for CNP (cardholder not present) transactions categorically states that cards must not be debited until purchases are ready for despatch. I'm not claiming this applies to all card processing contracts, but it certainly applies to mine.

John.

Reply to
John Turner

Do you take payments over the Internet, though? The rules are very different for Internet transactions, as the contract usually forbids the vendor from storing card details on any Internet-acessible system unless acceptable security procedures are in place. If you use a third-party processor, such as Protx or Worldpay, you never get to see the card details themselves at all and simply have no way at all to store them until the order is ready for dispatch.

If you're only taking orders by telephone or post and then manually processing them through an EPOS device, then you can simply write the card number down (if the order is taken by phone) or store the order form containing the card number (for mail order) until you're ready to dispatch the goods. You can also do that for postal/telephone orders even if you also have a separate Internet processing facility. But - and it's a big "but" - if you use a unified system to handle both online and offline CNP transactions, then the Internet rules about not storing numbers will apply to all of it.

Mark

Reply to
Mark Goodge

just had this email from them today:

"Dear Sir/Madam Thank you for your email. Due to the large number of models we are sending them out in stages. The first went on Tuesday 4th March, the second delivery is scheduled for Thursday 20th March and the last delivery will be in the first two weeks in April. We thank you for your patience at this time. Regards NRM Shop"

So looks like it's just a case of getting the stuff out to us...

Ian J.

Reply to
Ian J.

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