I've placed over 75+ orders with dealextreme the past 2-3 years , hardly any problems. I order at least once or twice a month from them.
I placed an order the other day for a bunch of light related items, totaling $109.
They told me they wouldn't ship my order out until I sent them a photocopy of my driver license , a FRONT AND BACK copy of my credit card , AND/OR a copy of my credit card statement!!! WTF?
What a load of fu*^&#$ bullshat! They want me to send photo copies of my most personal data to CHINA in form of a image!!!!
I could understand this if I was a first time buyer, but I've literally got 3 pages of order history with them. I've probably spent around $1,000 over the past few years.
The crazy thing is, I can't even contact them because it says I have a support ticket already open. WTF? Guess who opened that support ticket? DX DID! It's a ticket requesting this bullsh*t info.
Its defiantly a genuine email, I can go to the dealextreme website and it actually shows in my order status "payment verification needed"
I can't even cancel the order because it says I already have a support ticket open (they are the ones who opened the ticket requesting these pictures, not me)
How can you get ahold of them? It won't allow me to cancel the order from the account page. It says the support ticket requesting my pictures must be closed before a new one can be opened. The only option the support ticket gives me is to upload photos.
I have done a Paypal verification before. A scan of your drivers licence front and back and a credit card letter scan of the address (no need to scan the credit card numbers) is ok.
They probably just want to cut down on CC fraud possibility. They want to link your name/address of any photo ID with the credit card's name/ID and also credit card number.
It's not paypal requesting the stuff though, Its dealextreme directly. If it was paypal Id gladly provide it. I wonder what they would possibly be wanting to verify? I've shipped over 75 orders to the same exact address for the past 2-3 years.
Yeah, it's not uncommon - like 2100 said, it's a CYA maneuver to cover them in case of fraud. Since this is a CNP transaction, they obviously can't show a signature since there isn't one and since they never had physical possession of the credit card, they are on the hook if something happens. This isn't a PCI DSS thing either. It's been that way since way before they came up with that particular load of crap.
Having said that, if I were you, I would think twice before sending them anything too. When you think about it, there may be dozens (or even more) hotels, car rental companies and whatnot that already have your information, yes, but the difference is that you don't actually need anything from DX. A hotel room is different. You can't exactly sleep in the car when you're on a business trip (and without a credit card, you wouldn't have a rental car either).
As long as they charge is pending, they haven't actually charged you so you can't dispute the (non-existent) charge. Think of it as a form of pre-authorization, because that's what it is: they block a chunk of your money but it's not actually theirs yet. Holds have a pre-set expiration date and after that point, the hold falls off your account and the balance becomes available again.
Here's what I would do if I were you:
1. Check if the "cancel order" link on the invoice page is available. If it is, use that. If not,
2. Check if you can close the ticket so that you can open another ticket to cancel the order. Then place several smaller orders if you're not fed up with DX at that point. You may also want to wait until your credit card company or bank has verified that the transaction has been settled and the hold cleared.
3. Wait and do nothing. Send them nothing. Just wait until the hold expires. You can call your credit card company but there's really nothing they can do just yet - afterall, you did authorize the transaction so it's by definition not unauthorized.
I had to do this around Aug 2011 on a $100+ order. It sounded really strange to me, as it does you. I called DX and got someone that spoke decent English and they explained everything to me. I have not had any type of trouble resulting from this, nor has it happened again. Oh the things we go through for cheap stuff from China