My bank’s letter came with two attached pages that had obviously been downloaded, printed, and faxed a couple of times, making them a little hard to read and reproduce. But I sharpened up the attachment from ThinkGeek.com which they claim shows that it was my order and why they don’t want to accept the chargeback:

Instead of trying to clean up the second fuzzy attachment showing UPS tracking that my bank had enclosed with their letter, I managed to load the Tracking Number directly into UPS.com and the Tracking information came up online much clearer. So here it is:

And here’s the Customer Service policy section from ThinkGeek’s own site regarding Address Verification (my highlights in RED):

Apparently, these Geek wannabes claim that they verify addresses if they don’t conform or match the information provided in the account.

Anyway, here’s where ThinkGeek is being completely un-Geeky and VERY stupid for poor customer service and extremely risky transaction processing. In fact, I’ll be contacting VISA and MasterCard merchant services first thing Tuesday to inform them of ThinkGeek’s lack of proper due diligence in handling cardholder confirmation. Online merchants are naturally held to a higher standard for verifying transactions and rightfully so as the potential for massive fraud is much higher. If you look at their Order Confirmation page, you’ll see that someone (NOT me) obviously registered an account under my name using my credit card information (I’ve erased the address for security purposes but will confirm that they had my correct credit card billing address). But that phone number – 857-524-9635 – comes up as an “Unpublished Number” from somewhere in South Boston! And it’s NOT the phone number associated with my card or my address which are criteria that should have been confirmed as part of the card registration process for any new account.

Then you look at our buddy “Carl Blagg” – who apparently personally accepted the overnight delivery package from UPS at 758 Alaska Mountain in Danese WV – and HIS phone number’s listed as 968-857-8547 in their order. So do a quick online reverse search of THAT phone number and this is what you get:

Time it took to search each number? Less 2 seconds apiece and it’s generally done automatically with order-processing software! ThinkGeek needs to be officially stripped of their Geek moniker – they’re not worthy! At the very least, they’ve clearly violated their obligation to their merchant processor for not taking proper steps in customer card verification. And when I called them to inquire about this shipment (back on July 22nd), the customer service person (I think it was someone named Raven) did volunteer what the item ordered was and what state it was shipped to after I gave them my name, my card number AND my address to confirm that I was indeed the real cardholder. But they refused to give me the additional shipping information (Carl Blagg and his address and phone number) at the time by arguing that it was NOT my account! (WTF?!!) So what’s the very worst possibility that could come out of this? ThinkGeek is somehow involved with this online fraud and everyone should be blackballing them from gypping more customers using their credit card information fraudulently. So ThinkGeek – which is it? Do the right thing and get  with it and make things right or get ready to face some music? Disputing this chargeback is a really stupid way to build your business. (I’m sending a link to this post directly to ThinkGeek as well!)

I ended up stopping at my bank on Friday to provide a handwritten note that once again disputes this claim. After I had already disputed the charge with a signed and notarized disclaimer earlier. What a waste of my time. Just for that alone, ThinkGeek owes me and I’d doing them a favor for picking apart their crappy security system. (And no – this post is not getting taken down any time soon.)

And Carl Blagg does come up as a valid person living in Danese, WV but with an unlisted phone number.

Stay tuned. I have a feeling this isn’t the last I’ll hear of all this.

Well, it didn’t take very long before the wealth re-distribution trolls came out and tried to rain on the parade. Here are some of the comments that I couldn’t help finally answering personally. (Honestly – WTF is wrong with some people?!!)

A friend just sent me this very old interview (Thanx, Mike) from the Phil Donahue Show in 1979 with the late, great economist, Milton Friedman (check out that snazzy pink jacket!). Somehow I don’t think this was quite the answer Donahue was looking for but I do suspect he was enlightened. And under that clip is another short piece from John Stossel on Capitalism.