Dictionary.com in bed with Verisign

So what is wrong with these entries from my online banking:

11/21/02 LEXICO PUBLISHING GROUP LMARINA DEL RA $12.95 (pending)
11/21/02 LEXICO PUBLISHING GROUP LMARINA DEL RA $12.95 (pending)
11/21/02 LEXICO PUBLISHING GROUP LMARINA DEL RA $12.95 (pending)
11/21/02 LEXICO PUBLISHING GROUP LMARINA DEL RA $12.95 (pending)

They've finally been removed, but they were there for days.

Lexico is the outfit behind Dictionary.com. I had attempted to buy the premium membership for $12.95.

It would NOT accept my address, even though I quoted from my online banking. I was using a debit card, so this money was being held hostage. The bankers always apply pending charges but rarely pending credits, to the Available Balance number, the "real" number of your balance.

Here is the incredibly verbose error message I emailed to them to complain:

"Sorry, the address you entered does not match the address on your credit card. If you would like to re-enter your address or credit card information, please make the appropriate changes below and try again in 5 minutes. Note: the capitalization of your address is not important during the validation process. Note: If you repeatedly receive this error and you are using a PO Box or Rural Route Box as your address, please let us know.The specific error we received regarding the address on your credit card is: The street address you entered does not match the address on your credit card. Please verify the street address you entered or call your credit card provider to update your street address. If you are using a corporate credit card, you must enter the address associated with it. Typically this is the billing address of your company. For your protection, you must enter your credit card number again."

Does that sound like charges will show up? Come on, people, reliability is as important as usability.

They were at a loss to explain why this had happened: I explained I had verified the address that very day. The punchline? They admitted who they use to verify addresses: Verisign. What, screwing up domain names isn't enough now?

In a more successful foray, I purchased a Handspring Visor on EBay. It takes the InnoPak V2 expansion module, which offers a vibrate alarm setting, which is much stronger than the built-in ones. I have yet to conduct the movie viewing field test, but it's only a matter of time. A usability note: the Visor does not snug into the cradle nicely. You have to futz.

Posted by Chad Lundgren on Sunday, November 24, 2002 (Link)

Comments

Posted by Chad Lundgren Tuesday, November 26, 2002 at 03:53 AM

But wait, there's more...

Posted by Shannon Tuesday, November 26, 2002 at 01:02 PM

I had that (pending) problem with Wells Fargo once. I had spent something like $24.00 at a restaurant, and the pending amount was about $29.00. I went to the bank to get it straightened out, and they said I had to wait three or four days until the amount cleared, and if it was still wrong, I was supposed to go to the restaurant and have it fixed.

I'm sure the restaurant would have been real adept at figuring that one out. Ha ha. Luckily it cleared properly and I didn't have to worry about it.