Careful ordering from Bimmerworld!!

[Vanne]

So I go online at the Bimmerworld website to order a new thermostat, some adjustable end links and a new oil cooler.
put my details in and then pay with my Visa credit card. Which I then see has deducted the said funds from my account. cool!

NOT!!

I get an email from Patrick (accounts department Bimmerworld) saying they can't verify my credit card, and if I want to go ahead with my purchase, they require immediate payment in either a bank wire transfer or PayPal.

Wait! what!!?? you've already deducted the funds from my account.!!! (I have my account statement that states that they already took the funds)

So I go, "but I've already payed you guys, I have a statement where it shows you guys have deducted the funds from my account!"

yeah , NO!! require immediate payment , unless we cancel your order...

what???

so I go " But I've ordered from you guys before, no issues, using the EXACT SAME credit card!!" ..

No, you have to pay again, using wire transfer or PayPal..

Now this starts to shit me and I say I want a refund before paying with the other options as YOU ALREADY HAVE MY MONEY!! (there might have been a FCUKING! in between "my and money"...

He (Pat) says "ok, ive made a refund to your account of the said funds, now please pay, or we cancel the order."

I go "But my bank says the amount hasn't been deposited back??"

Oh Pat goes on to say that "It will only take 3 days.."

Cool, so I go "Okies , ill wait till the cash is back in my account..."

Thats a MONTH AGO!!! , no funds have been deposited back into my account.. Ive since obviously canceled my order with them, but still waiting for my payment to be refunded on my credit card.

Been emailing them backwards and forwards about their lousy service, and they say that as far as they are concerned have issued a refund, but still nothing in my account..

NICE!



careful who you order through guys, just a heads up. (while I am still waiting for my funds to return to my account.)

[EMKOOP]

Sorry to hear about that Vanne.

Hope everything works out for you soon

[Azeka1]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with BW.

Considering the purchase was made using a Credit Card, I would suggest calling the Issuer's fraud department and filing a claim. If the merchant cannot provide proof that the item(s) was shipped and received by the purchaser, then the funds will be reimbursed. This should be a pretty quick process, too. Hope that helps!

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by Azeka1

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with BW.

Considering the purchase was made using a Credit Card, I would suggest calling the Issuer's fraud department and filing a claim. If the merchant cannot provide proof that the item(s) was shipped and received by the purchaser, then the funds will be reimbursed. This should be a pretty quick process, too. Hope that helps!

I agree with this. And your warning is duly noted and I won’t be purchasing anything from these folks ever. This totally sucks - I hope you get your money back soon.

[The HACK]

Dispute the charges with your credit card company. Order somewhere else.

[KevinC]

Ouch, that's an ugly story.

I much prefer to order from vendors who take PayPal. That way, you don't have to expose your personal credit card info to them. Even better - Apple Pay. Very secure. Not aware of any of the automotive vendors accepting it yet though. Very cool on websites that do accept it.

[elerner61]

Bummer. Never would have imagined Bimmerworld operates from Nigeria.

[rockstar93]

I had an ordeal with BW as well after I purchased an Epic tune on their Black Friday sale.

Originally purchased with VISA, billed to my Canadian address but shipped to my US address (quite common for us close to the border). They emailed me shortly after with the same note saying I would need to pay via wire transfer or PayPal with verified address because it was my first order and the Billing/Shipping addresses did not match. Not wanting the hassle or cost of a wire transfer, and since my PayPal verified address is my Canadian address, I conceded and chose to change my shipping address to my Canadian address (thus my shipping/billing address matched) so I could keep my payment on VISA.

Well, nope. Got an email back now saying they would still need payment via wire transfer or PayPal with verified address because it's a first time International order. Like cool, you have your policies but why do they seem to be changing with each email? At this point I'm getting fed up and feeling like they don't want my money. I made a post about it on M3Forum and was largely flamed because everybody else had a great experience with BW so my experience was invalid. Because of the positive reviews I had heard about them I chose to push through, and just paid via PayPal (since I was now shipping to Canada my verified address is correct).

Then they try and rip me off on shipping, saying it's an extra $70 USD to ship to Canada. I go online and try to checkout with a new order and see that they actually offer a $50 option to my address. I screenshot that and send it to them, and they honour it. Keep in mind I'm still being ripped off because this is $50 to ship a ~4x4x4" box holding on the tuning cable. My questions about the value of the shipment (so I can prepare for the duties/taxes across the border) were ignored multiple times and they just shipped.

About a week later the box arrives, and they valued/insure the shipment at $1,100 rather than the $125 it should be since they only ship the cable and the tune is delivered by email between myself and Epic, not through BW. So it was an extra few hundred dollars in border fees. I complained about this on their Facebook page because was majorly pissed off at this point. Up until this moment I was dealing with the same person you were (Patrick G.), and was not impressed.

Fast forward a few weeks and I get an email and voicemail, both sincere and long-winded, from a James, saying he read my Facebook review, apologized, and explained what happened from their end (fraud prevention policies, lack of knowledge on international shipment valuations, and Patrick being "new" and in-training). He said they looked into it further and agreed that I was correct and they mis-valued the package and sent a refund for the difference in fees I paid to the border.

I had a good feeling from James, he legitimately seemed apologetic and concerned for customer satisfaction, very sincere. Because of that I took down my review and amended the post of M3Forum. But I have to say because of the whole ordeal and interaction with Patrick, I'm definitely going to think long and hard before I give them any more money.

It seems like if you're a US customer, they're a viable source, but if you're International there's a few more hoops to jump through compared to other vendors. I've spent $1000's on ECS/Turner and even though they have a terrible reputation, I've had nothing but great experiences and never had this hassle.

[The HACK]

I have some experience from the vendors end, believe it or not.

International shipping is a nightmare. There's just no way around it.

I recall having to turn multiple customers away and tell them to buy one of our products through a Canadian retailer because, frankly, it's too much hassle. Customs, shipping, and a variety of other issues basically makes it an extra full time employee just to deal with CANADIAN orders, not just international orders, if we have more than handful of orders in a day. You have to have your border's custom form in order and in the box or else don't ever expect the package to be delivered.

It took us about $10,000 worth of custom dev work on the web ordering back-end (gotta love NetSuite in its infancy) back in the mid 200x's to get just the Canadian order working. Forget international across seas. It was getting to a point that it cost more to ship the product overseas than the product, and we're talking about $300+ here. No matter how willing the customer is, the directive from up top is, if it's international, recommend them to buy local even though it can be cheaper for the customer to buy directly from us, even with the shipping sometimes. Especially with new products that haven't been fed through international distribution yet.

Suffice to say, our shipping manager eventually figured out all the details and worked out a good workflow to get international orders out the door. It basically added nearly 20% to my bottom line annually and it was just too big to ignore. Even then, every board meeting I had to explain to the PTB WHY International Orders take as much time and effort as domestic orders to fulfill, when it only comprises of about 20% of all my sales.

Fast forward nearly a decade, and the problem hasn't gotten significantly better. The systems may be in place to process and fulfill the orders more efficiently, but the HUMAN aspect of it doesn't improve. If you're not trained to deal with international shipping and customs issues, you're going to struggle fulfilling an international order for sure.

And that doesn't even begin to touch on the significantly higher rate of fraudulent orders or the process of returns or refused shipment. Again, 20% of our orders at the time, almost 80% of our "problem" orders. We eventually got it all sorted out, but man...The time/money/Human Resources spent on it was disproportionally large compared to the revenue it was generating.

On that front, that's why I recommend disputing with your credit card company. We used to get that a lot. It was far easier for a disgruntled customer to dispute the charge, but far harder for us to deal with. Our accounting department keeps track of all disputed charges, because, at the time, once we past a certain threshold of disputes the bank puts additional processing fees on our orders. I got slapped on the wrist so many times by accounting it wasn't even funny. I always get the cross eyes from the accounts receivables lady during our Monday status meeting. But you as a customer want to resolve an order dispute? Nothing gets accounting off their asses faster than a credit card chargeback dispute, because it creates a nightmare scenario for them. Accounting would have to provide a long string of documentation to the bank, then wait for the bank to "investigate," and in the end it's almost always decided to the customer's favor 99% of the time. If you're not happy with the service, received the wrong parts, or never received the part at all, unless we have UPS/FedEx with your signature on it, the bank will almost always decide in the customer's favor. And again, rack up enough chargeback disputes, instead of paying 3.5% processing fee, you're looking at 4%, and that 0.5% applied to your overall sales? HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars lost, potentially.

Doesn't excuse the poor customer service though.

But you can bet your sweet behind that the customer service rep or sales guy that's responsible for the most charge disputes end up getting laid off or fired quickly, even if their other job performances are satisfactory or even above expectations.

[ZMCoupe]

Wow those are some pretty bad stories! I have ordered from them before and received my items but was also hit with high fees, taxes and duties. But not nearly as bad as Rockstar93.... Glad you were able to recoup some of your over payment in the end.

Vanne I hope you get your refund soon, maybe reach out to this James that Rockstar mentioned and definitely file a dispute with Visa. I have had to file a dispute with them before and it was very quick and easy to do, with resolution within a week or so.

Good luck!

[rockstar93]

Correction - it was not James it was John "JB" Butler (jbutler at bimmerworld dot com).

[Michael9218]

Originally Posted by ZMCoupe

maybe reach out to this James that Rockstar mentioned

That would be James Clay, the owner...a long time supporter of the BMW Club Racing scene and general all around good guy. They're obviously having some teething pains with international shipments.

[bananabun]

Originally Posted by Michael9218

That would be James Clay, the owner...a long time supporter of the BMW Club Racing scene and general all around good guy. They're obviously having some teething pains with international shipments.

Agreed. Never had issues with BW and I know James is a stand-up guy. Just email him and give them a chance to figure it out.

[JamesClay]

James here. I don't know the details of these two and in no way could of all the transactions we have, but I can certainly have someone look into them - and any of our customers that aren't getting their needs met can escalate to a manager - probably the same as many other businesses in the world. We may not be able to meet everyone's needs, but we run a good honest business and if we can't then we don't take your money either.

For the OP, that is very typical for a credit card purchase - what we had was an authorization (which we explained to you), but that does not give us your money - in fact it is a nice safety feature for you so you can know there is activity on your account in case there is fraud. We do have a fraud net here and sadly every year it becomes more important. Domestic orders make our fraud prevention much easier due to available information, but international orders are difficult and often won't go through, so we require alternate forms of payment that can't be reversed. And we cancel an authorization, but it is up to the bank to release it - and when they do it is like it never happened - you don't pay interest on the money for the span of the authorization. We do request alternate payment, and if we can't get it and the fraud net hasn't been cleared, then we have no choice but to cancel an order, but it certainly isn't an immediate thing, and we certainly don't treat customers trying to trade their hard-earned money for goods and services without respect or a bit of effort to resolve the situation.

Anyway, we will revisit this order and certainly find the lost money, but I would be shocked if we have it - I don't even think our system would allow us to have a paid unshipped order. Sorry for the hassles.

And thanks for our customers that spoke up for us - we do try hard. Goes a long way to balance out the guys that love to pile on with no actual experience. Much appreciated.

[Vanne]

Thanks for responding Clay, I really appreciate it mate. It actually completely blew me away when Pat emailed saying they weren't going to ship the order after the money actually left my account, regardless of where it then goes, as all I know it's not in my account, and that's AFTER I had ordered from your store before last year and there were absolutely zero issues using the exact same credit card. Even gave my mates here a bunch of your hats saying what a great shop you guys ran.

I am not sure where the stuff up is,, I just know the cash isn't in my account and then your accounts department (Pat) telling me to print out the email stating that you have refunded my money just isn't good enough. Will take me a trip to the bank , wait there for over an hour and then try to explain what is going on. That's not my job and I sure as hell don't want to spend my time (which I sure as hell don't have enough off, as I work my ass off way to much) chasing up money that I payed for an order (now over a bloody month ago) and never shipped. So now I have no order and still money missing in my account.

Sorry mate, but that's just not good enough. Thanks for looking into it Clay, really appreciate it.

Cheers

[JamesClay]

Originally Posted by Vanne

Thanks for responding Clay, I really appreciate it mate. It actually completely blew me away when Pat emailed saying they weren't going to ship the order after the money actually left my account, regardless of where it then goes, as all I know it's not in my account, and that's AFTER I had ordered from your store before last year and there were absolutely zero issues using the exact same credit card. Even gave my mates here a bunch of your hats saying what a great shop you guys ran.

I am not sure where the stuff up is,, I just know the cash isn't in my account and then your accounts department (Pat) telling me to print out the email stating that you have refunded my money just isn't good enough. Will take me a trip to the bank , wait there for over an hour and then try to explain what is going on. That's not my job and I sure as hell don't want to spend my time (which I sure as hell don't have enough off, as I work my ass off way to much) chasing up money that I payed for an order (now over a bloody month ago) and never shipped. So now I have no order and still money missing in my account.

Sorry mate, but that's just not good enough. Thanks for looking into it Clay, really appreciate it.

Cheers

I've learned more of your specific details here. Patrick is sales, who would typically interface with a customer, but he has addressed with accounting. The authorization was canceled in our system as Patrick relayed - and again, it was an authorization, which on our end takes no money. The interfaces between systems rarely have issues, but something odd happened on this one, so we also went directly to our gateway to void the authorization.

An authorization is a verification of funds, but a CAPTURE (which we did not do) is when we the vendor would receive your money. An authorization can be canceled like we did here, but there is no standard as to when it is removed, which is a problem with the banks and 100% out of our control - by about 10 levels... I can tell you from experience only that some processors are almost immediate, and some take up to 10 days, with most falling in the 2-3 day range. AND - if not canceled (again - we did cancel this one), the authorization STILL does not take money out of your account - it just stays there for typically 7-10 days, but I have seen a rare few go longer. I wish I had better answers on what banks do and what your bank and your credit card supplier's policies and processes are because it sure makes us look like the bad guy, but we have done everything we can on our end, and I can 100% confirm we didn't take your money.

Also - not sure if you are looking for a refund or a specific line item on your transactions report, but you won't see that because we never had the money. The authorization will simply cease to appear.

I would hope the time the president of the company is spending on one single customer and transaction out of the volume of business we do is an indicator of how important this is to me and us. I certainly have a staggering amount of work to do after returning from a week of racing at CotA, but none of them have been more important than this one this morning.

I'd be happy to continue to discuss your order, credit card, and bank details in a public forum, but I suspect it's not the appropriate place. Patrick is your salesman and I think you have his contact information (patrick@bimmerworld.com), but you can certainly escallate to his manager (phil@) if you aren't getting what you need - assuming it is within our ability to provide it. In this case, no one here will be able to take further action on an authorization already canceled.

Sorry for the hassles. If I could sit in your bank for an hour and put my hands around the neck of the person that actually controls the processes that lead here, I'd be happy to do it.

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by JamesClay

James here......

And thanks for our customers that spoke up for us - we do try hard. Goes a long way to balance out the guys that love to pile on with no actual experience. Much appreciated.

James, I resemble that remark. To be clear, I've known Vanne here for years on the is forum and he is a totally stand up guy - except while driving of course . I'm just supporting him as best I can, as are others I think, so I'm a little disappointed by what could be taken as a negative characterization of that. But hey, I get your frustration and that things can be complex to fix, so no harm done. But remember - Vanne is out money so hopefully you can straighten this out , and demonstrate that your outfit is a quality one.

Ya know, kumbaya, etc, etc.

[JamesClay]

Originally Posted by Huz-Z

James, I resemble that remark. To be clear, I've known Vanne here for years on the is forum and he is a totally stand up guy - except while driving of course . I'm just supporting him as best I can, as are others I think, so I'm a little disappointed by what could be taken as a negative characterization of that. But hey, I get your frustration and that things can be complex to fix, so no harm done. But remember - Vanne is out money so hopefully you can straighten this out , and demonstrate that your outfit is a quality one.

Ya know, kumbaya, etc, etc.

I get it. Support your friends - I'm with that. Don't tolerate poor vendor performance - I'm also 100% onboard and pretty outspoken about that especially in the racing industry where customers can easily get stuck pretty hard due to the dollar amounts involved.

Maybe you'd be willing to pause at calling us fraudsters until we commit fraud or rip someone off? Sadly, if I was a fraudster or unethical company, I wouldn't care - it's only because we bust our ass to run a top level company that it hurts my feelings.

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by JamesClay

I get it. Support your friends - I'm with that. Don't tolerate poor vendor performance - I'm also 100% onboard and pretty outspoken about that especially in the racing industry where customers can easily get stuck pretty hard due to the dollar amounts involved.

Maybe you'd be willing to pause at calling us fraudsters until we commit fraud or rip someone off? Sadly, if I was a fraudster or unethical company, I wouldn't care - it's only because we bust our ass to run a top level company that it hurts my feelings.

You are quite right - that was a poor choice of words on my part. I'd be quite delighted to revise my view when this is all settled. And I have removed that word also.

[tominizer]

I've used Bimmerworld a lot over the years and helped them out up here at Mosport (cleaning tires!!) a few times with a good friend of mine Adam Hale. I've never had any issues with them although some of the deals have been complex due to the international part to here in Canada. I also had a problem with Ground Control bearings and they took care of the issue without any questions.

I would never hesitate to recommend them or their products. Listen, fact is sometimes shit happens, even with customer service. It's an unfortunate reality. And I've also met James a few times over the years and will vouch for the guy as being a stand up gentleman. I know Bimmerworld has always done right by me and my friends that have used them. And that's my $0.02....... Canadian funds !!

[The HACK]

I feel your pain. I really do.

James Clay is 100% correct here. And this is not because I used to work on that side of the fence, and I do. But I am also a consumer and having straddled both sides I can tell you this...I understand how the system works better than most.

The credit card transaction process is hard. It's a wonder that ANY commerce happens. At all. I'll share some horror stories with y'all later, but the process as described by James is exactly what it is. But from the consumer's side it looks different, because, say, you have a card that has a $30,000 credit limit, and you place an order for $500, and the vendor's system inquires as to whether or not your credit card actually has $500, and if it does, it places an authorization hold for that $500 in case you go out and buys a $29,990 car before the vendor ships the part out, and now they're out a $500 part when they DO ship it out in 2 days and can't get the bank to fund the order.

To you and me, the consumer, it looks like this though. You call up the bank to verify your available credit, and you see it as you have "$29,500" left in the account. In reality, you have $30,000 credit limit, but only $29,500 is available to use to buy stuff at this moment, because the vendor has placed a $500 authorization hold before he/she physically ships the item out and the credit card company actually funds it. To you the consumer, it looks like he's already charged the $500. To the vendor, he hasn't charged sh*t. It's all very confusing in this nebulous accounting area called "reconciliation," because bank ledgers need to "balance" the funds going in and out, they set up 2 books, one to take in the funds, one to send out the funds, and it's actually a 4 step process to actually complete 1 transaction (believe it or not. I worked in Marketing for a Financial Software company at one time or another).

Accountants love this sh*t. But at the end of the day it creates some confusion, and in this case, there appears to be funds missing but there is not.

I still stand by my original recommendation though. The vendor may end up getting the shaft (sorry Bimmerworld), but Vanne, if you want this cleared up ASAP, call your bank and ask them to contest the charge, especially if you intend to cancel the order (or have cancelled already). This action will trigger the bank to immediately release the funds to you, and they'll start looking at their ledger and realize that it's actually just an authorization. The process of initiating the dispute will actually result in them either telling you that "oh there isn't an order, it's just an authorization and we'll remove it right away" or, if there indeed has been funds transferred, you'll still be made whole and the bank will work with BimmerWorld's accounting department to get it all straightened out.

It is still in YOUR best interest to call the bank.









Story time.

So, the place I used to work at, since I'm in charge of all internet/direct sales, most of the time when sh*t goes wrong, I'm the guy that needs to go between accounting and sales. Sometimes, it feels like that's not Marketings responsibility, but whatever. So one day, a sales guy comes to me and said, "hey I've got this customer who's trying to order [insert name of a $500 product we sell] off of our website, and he's having a hard time, He said we charged him $1,500 on his credit card and now he can't afford to pay rent." Me being the guy in charge of the back-end (again, thank you NetSuite), looked up his order and sure enough, the guy put in 3 separate orders for the same thing, all three times the order didn't go through. Having no visibility into accounting on the back-end software, I went to accounts receivable and inquired as to why the order was not authorized. The nice accounting lady told me that the credit card authorization service denied the card he was using because the CVV number did not match.

Some more back and forth later, sales guy got a hold of the customer on the phone and we figured out that he typed in the wrong CVV, and when it didn't go through the first time, he kept hitting "submit order" rather than double check. But since MOST of the information match, the system's inquiry initiated an authorization each time, and sure enough, when he goes to draw $$$ out of the bank (it was a pre-load/reload debit card), he has insufficient funds because of the 3 $500 authorization the system had placed on his card.

This was back before the days where easy access to an online merchant account portal was widely available, so our accounting lady had to get on the phone to OUR merchant account processor to have them release the funds immediately, so the guy can get money to pay for rent. At the end of the day, it all got resolved, and the guy DID ultimately place an order with the help of our sales guy for the product he was looking for. But it made for an entertaining day with a guy screaming on the phone that we're stealing money out of his bank account first thing in the morning.

But believe you me, this happens more often than not. And through out this whole process, it turned out to be a good learning process for us (the company I worked for didn't use to sell direct. It was a program I initiated), and we had to get the merchant processing account to make some edits to the process as to not place a hold when an order did not go through. Yay. More back-office sleuthing and problem solving for some marketing idiot.






So, it's he (BimmerWorld) said he (Vane) said, but from where I sit? I can totally see where the confusion is coming from, because I've experienced it from both sides. It's the convoluted international shipping rules (sorry Vanne), a banking and credit system built in the 70s and 80s trying to adapt to today's ecommerce needs, and the strange world that's called accounting with all their weird compliance rules that requires multiple steps to get a transaction completed. Good luck getting it resolved between the two parties (trying my best not to sound sarcastic, because I've been there).

[JamesClay]

Originally Posted by The HACK

I still stand by my original recommendation though. The vendor may end up getting the shaft (sorry Bimmerworld), but Vanne, if you want this cleared up ASAP, call your bank and ask them to contest the charge, especially if you intend to cancel the order (or have cancelled already). This action will trigger the bank to immediately release the funds to you, and they'll start looking at their ledger and realize that it's actually just an authorization. The process of initiating the dispute will actually result in them either telling you that "oh there isn't an order, it's just an authorization and we'll remove it right away" or, if there indeed has been funds transferred, you'll still be made whole and the bank will work with BimmerWorld's accounting department to get it all straightened out.

It is still in YOUR best interest to call the bank.

I strongly (as a vendor) prefer to sort out issues with our customer instead of the chargeback/bank route because the majority of the time we actually end up getting our money back - because if a refund is due we've already given it. The chargeback system is great when dealing with eBay and similar faceless sellers or automated systems where there is no reasonable thought put into crating a proper situation. But I know not all businesses and transactions go this way. So I do appreciate the effort to resolve it with us.

In this case, if you go this route, I suspect this is correct. The bank will finally discover that no money was captured to refund and it will resolve the issue. But again - I suspect given this long if you look, you might find that the authorization has just slipped off your transactions list with no notice.

Thanks for the time to explain the credit card system. Agree with this statement 100% - hilarious

Originally Posted by The HACK

It's a wonder that ANY commerce happens.