Unauthorized order from BG, how do I proceed?

Agro · 2018-04-27T11:06:46.000Z

I just made an order with BG for ~$20.
I authorized the charge of ~$20 with PayPal.
Later I learned that PP paid them over $30 and that this is due to a fact that I have 2 orders in my account.
I think I identified this as a bug in BG website, related to my use of 2 browser tabs.
And I can’t imagine what PP was thinking when they allowed the case of user being charged more than they authorized.

How should I proceed with it?
So far I submitted a ticket to BG.
And to PP (“unauthorized use of my account”). I feel that category doesn’t really fit, but this is the closest that I’ve seen.

DavidEF · 2018-04-27T11:23:44.000Z

I think PP is the one to take it up with. But, it’s good that you notify Banggood as well. They may even be more helpful than PP.

Henk4U2 · 2018-04-27T11:28:09.000Z

I assume that it is possible to cancel your order until it is shipped. In that case BG will refund you. No questions asked. About the “double” order: maybe you had 1 item in your cart in every browser-tab. That would have surfaced after pressing F5. But I still think you have sanctioned “all” orders in one of the tabs, not realising that there was another item in the cart in the other browser-tab.

G0OSE · 2018-04-27T11:36:28.000Z

Funny you should raise this! I was looking at my Paypal the other day and I saw a charge for a Minecraft skin pack - it wasn’t that I’d stop my 4 yr old son having it, it was more how the hell did he do it?!?
I had £385 in there at the time and he could have literally spent the lot!
Turns out when you pay via paypal it ‘pre allows’ payments from that point on, without a password in this case!
I had to go in and remove like 50+ pre approved vendors! I was astonished how I could miss such a thing as I am really careful like that!
Cheeky gits!

Agro · 2018-04-27T11:54:07.000Z

Henk4U2:

I assume that it is possible to cancel your order until it is shipped. In that case BG will refund you. No questions asked. About the “double” order: maybe you had 1 item in your cart in every browser-tab. That would have surfaced after pressing F5. But I still think you have sanctioned “all” orders in one of the tabs, not realising that there was another item in the cart in the other browser-tab.

It went like that:

Charge is made of 3 parts:
$18 items I want
$2 shipping
$12 item I don’t want

On the item site there was $11.x per item, $1.y shipping. (at that point I missed that there was no free shipping).
I got 1 item unrelated to the whole problem in the basket. I was not logged in.
I added 2 items to the basket, in the basket I applied coupon.
I saw a price of $18. (Note: there is no shipping price here)
Then I went to PP, authorized transaction. Actually I think I authorized $18. I didn’t notice that shipping costed anything yet.
Then went back to the final BG page. There was $20, shipping price higher than on the item page (due to 2 items I guess).
If I clicked “OK” (or whatever is that button called), BG would charge me $20 using a hole in PP. Watch out, what you see as the authorized price may be different than what you pay and since BG actively uses that hole, it must be a well-known behaviour!

But I didn’t click “OK” yet.
In another tab I went to the items page to see shipping. I saw it was lower than what I’ve seen. Curious, I went to checkout again…
…this time not through paypal.
BG asked me to log in.
I did so.
On the checkout page I saw $2 shipping. And I saw another item which was probably in my basket, linked somehow to my BG account.
I knew what I wanted to know - that I pay $2 shipping and that’s it.
If I clicked “OK” on that checkout page, BG would make 2 orders for the items that I wanted and for the item that I didn’t.

But I didn’t click “OK” there.
I went back to the original tab and clicked “OK” there.
BG acted as if I clicked on the other.

Henk4U2 · 2018-04-27T12:08:23.000Z

Hm, have you already tried cancelling some or all of your order(s)?

Agro · 2018-04-27T12:16:09.000Z

I created a support ticket as that was the only “after-sale” help that they offer.
But since tickets are slow and chats are fast, I went to “pre-sale” chat and managed to cancel the unwanted order. Hope to see the money on the PP account soon.
Told them about the bug, somehow I don’t think they’ll fix it. I think that the bug is bad use of cookies. And fixing that would be a major modification.

Henk4U2 · 2018-04-27T12:41:00.000Z

Good, but that can take a day or so. Apparently everybody is authorised to accept your money. Better said, nobody checks if anyone is authorised if it comes to taking your money from you. But only someone who is really authorised can give your money back. In some companies this is checked for every single return transaction.

BTW I often use two browser-tabs when ordering. This fine forum offers many perks and bargains. But when you want to put the item you just saw in your cart, you are not logged in. And when you log in, it can be hard to find back that item. So I open a second browser-tab, log in on the website and press F5. At that point both browser-tabs are synchronised and are aware of your name and of the item you so desperately want. At that point I close the second browser-tab and carry on doing my thing.

Agro · 2018-04-27T13:28:39.000Z

I avoid unnecessary reloads, because they sometimes lose some important state.
But it shows that not-reloading does the same… :person_facepalming:
Got to love the www….

Phlogiston · 2018-04-28T02:10:43.000Z

G0OSE:

Turns out when you pay via paypal it ‘pre allows’ payments from that point on, without a password in this case!

Whoa. They’ve been annoying me with offers to do this for a couple of months now - every time I buy something on EBay, it offers to skip the Paypal login stage for future purchases. It’s really irritating, because the only options are “Yes” or “Maybe Later”. I can’t just say “NO. Don’t bother me again!”

I didn’t know that these things could sneak in under the radar, though.

I’ve just gone into my own account and made sure everything really is the way I want it to be.

Thanks for the heads-up :+1:

G0OSE:

Cheeky gits!

They certainly are!

Lightbringer · 2018-04-28T03:40:14.000Z

Odd. I never ever allow “keep me logged in” or anything of the kind, and try to make this kind of thing difficult to do by accident, even if it’s more tedium for “real” purchases.

Can’t speak to BG, but when I ordered some goodies from GB, then another identical order (flash sale limit? :laughing: ), GB sent the first but held the 2nd until I confirmed that yes, I really did want the 2nd order.

Would be nice if BG would do similarly.

But if it’s an order you didn’t authorise, I’d think it’s on BG and/or PP to sort it out, else do a chargeback.

pennzy · 2018-04-28T13:42:50.000Z

I always thought the “stay logged in” thing only affected Pay Pal and not the sales sight you are on. The only difference was the need to log into PP. Are you saying it gives permission to charge things to places I shop?

Agro · 2018-04-28T13:55:25.000Z

This is not related to staying logged in.
It was the very same PayPal transaction which I authorized. It’s just that Banggodd stretched the amount.
And it seems they stretch it as a part of the normal course by adding shipping costs after getting authorization for the items’ worth.
It seems PP just works like that. So verify that every transaction finished with the amount you authorized or you may be screwed.
Frankly, I consider this a scam and I blame both PP and BG for that. The former more than the latter.

In my case it’s simply that a bug in BG made the stretch much bigger than usually by adding another order to the bill.

Lightbringer · 2018-04-28T13:52:57.000Z

pennzy:

I always thought the “stay logged in” thing only affected Pay Pal and not the sales sight you are on. The only difference was the need to log into PP. Are you saying it gives permission to charge things to places I shop?

Unno, but a lotta sites have that “convenience”.