Newegg problems

[boeckelr]

Hi,

I've been building PCs for friends, family and myself since probably the mid to late 1990s. And for long as I can remember I've bought most if not all of my parts from Newegg, with no problems. The last PCs I built were i5-2500k systems...one for my brother and one for myself in 2011 and had no issues.

This weekend I tried to order parts for two separate systems. The first was a small Haswell i5 based system for my mom....and the second an expensive i7-5280 based system for myself.

I placed the i5 order on Friday with a Citibank credit card with zero balance and a giant credit limit. The order was for around $600. The next day I was looking at my email and saw it was refused by Citibank fraud department. After phone calls etc to Citibank I replaced my order and it went through.

Saturday night I placed the order for my i7 system....it was for around $1700. I used a Bank of America credit card this time, thinking I'd avoid the issues that Citibanks fraud department gave me. Once again I pay my balance in full and it had a huge credit limit on this card. Sunday morning I woke up to the same emails - flagged for fraud. I called Bank of Amerixa and confirmed my charges and they said I could re order the stuff (almost like I need permission to use my credit card that I pay on time and in full every month but that's another topic altogether).

Fortunately the Newegg 4th of July sale went thru Sunday...so Sunday night I re ordered the exact same parts. The case was from a separate vendor and that charge went thru. But the bulk of the items - like $1500 worth - flagged for fraud again.

To Add insult to injury, prior to placing the order I had subscribed to Neweggs Premium - kind of,like Amazon Prime - for three months and $16.

So now I don't know what to do. I searched for issues with Newegg and if I can believe what I read online, once people order from Newegg, they later receive random things they didn't order, and Newegg refuses to take them back or refund the charges. So people end up blocking all charges from Newegg to prevent this. This is obviously why the major credit cards are suspicious of Newegg and won't let an order go thru unless you verbally verify it by phone.

So have any of you experienced this? How long has it been going on? And where do you buy your parts?

I've priced this system at Amazon and its substantially more expensive. Same with Tiger Direct. And neither of those places has the ram that I want for the motherboard I'm buying. I have a Microcenter within driving distance but they don't have what I want either.

What do I do? This is absurd.

Thanks for your help. Sorry for typos. I type horrendously on my iPad.

 

[nisryus]

I have been ordered from Newegg for years (every month so my wife kind of roll her eyes when I told her I need something....) and only used two credit cards - Discover and Citibank Master. Never had problem with my ordered, nor had I received random stuffs from them. I would call the card issuers ahead of time before placing an order, that should stop them from flagging the order.

 

[LTC8K6]

I don't think you have a Newegg problem, but a Citibank/BofA problem?

There's no reason for them to flag a Newegg order.

 

[Majic 7]

This has nothing to do with Newegg specifically. This is whatever financial institution you are using and them being careful about online fraud. I went through the same thing when I ordered my 980 Ti. I freaked and ordered from various places and got refused both from Citi and my bank credit card. If you don't order a lot online you have to get large purchases pre-approved now.

 

[piasabird]

I have seen several issues like this, but not lately. Last time I saved up the money and used a debit card. I quit using credit cards.

 

[crashtech]

I've never had an issue with Newegg in the fifteen years I've been buying from them. It must be something to do with your identity. You'd better pull a credit report.

 

[Gardener]

Your large, random purchase triggered a fraud alert with the bank that issued your credit card.

Welcome to 2014.

If you want to prevent it from happening, call the card issuer prior to the purchase, and tell them you intend to make a specific purchase.

 

[vailr]

It's probably a set dollar amount, like maybe $500, that auto-triggers the fraud alert. There may be an option to modify the specific dollar amount per each CC account. So that only if the charge amount is over a new, higher amount would the fraud alert again be triggered.

 

[crashtech]

I buy so much stuff from Newegg that an open account makes sense, but before that, Paypal got used a lot. I think that using Paypal might help bypass the CC fraud alerts if it is on the list of commonly used merchants.

 

[Ketchup]

Agreed that this is not a Newegg issue. This is financial ubstitutuons being (overly) cautious. Unfortunately, it is becoming the way things are. Might want to try paypal next time.

 

[mfenn]

It's probably a set dollar amount, like maybe $500, that auto-triggers the fraud alert. There may be an option to modify the specific dollar amount per each CC account. So that only if the charge amount is over a new, higher amount would the fraud alert again be triggered.

Modern CC fraud detection systems used by major banks are much more sophisticated than this. It's based on a statistical model of your individual purchasing patterns with some weights added for external factors. If you deviate too far from what the model predicts you "should" be buying, it gets flagged.

 

[Majic 7]

My credit rating is 800 and I still had to call and tell Citi to approve my purchase. It's frequency of large purchases and it had been 3 years for me. Like mfenn and everyone said. I even have an account with newegg.