How to Lower the Odds in Mail-Order Gamble
There are all these wonderful catalogues now of mail-order goods--everything from soap to nuts, and easy to order, what with credit cards and toll-free phone numbers. Unfortunately, there’s still the same old fear of late delivery, no delivery or delivery of something totally unacceptable--a reasonable fear if one is buying unseen goods from unknown merchants across the country.
Such sales have nevertheless grown to $150 billion, and a third of all U.S. households have at some time made these long-distance purchases. Actually, “mail” order is increasingly a misnomer: Neither solicitation nor order necessarily goes by mail. Catalogue mailers represent about a quarter of those sales, and perhaps two-thirds of the customers order by phone, charging purchases to a credit card. Consumers, moreover, are no longer so powerless if they’re disappointed--particularly credit card customers, who have a powerful weapon in their method of payment, though few apparently know it.
The best protection, as everyone says, is prudence. Mail-order purchase is obviously more of a gamble than a considered buy at a retail store. One should be careful with merchants one doesn’t know, suspicious of companies with no phone numbers or street addresses, and leery of offers that sound too good to be true.
If there’s any concern--about the offer, goods or refund policy--”people should call the company and make inquiries,” suggests Sandra McFeeley, senior attorney in the U.S. Postal Service’s consumer protection division, “and the company should respond. Any business that wants to do well should be into the care and feeding of customers.”
Company Is the First Recourse
If there’s a problem later--a gift not there for Christmas or an ill fit--the company itself is the first recourse. As the industry has grown, so have the companies involved; many are sophisticated, well-managed marketers who study their customers, streamline their order and delivery systems, and care about their reputation for safety and service.
They also care about their image as an industry; all are tarnished by the occasional opportunist who jumps into mail order with a back-page or late-night ad and a hope that some people will buy anything. The Direct Marketing Assn., an industry trade group in New York, therefore maintains a “mail order action line” for dissatisfied consumers. If a company is unresponsive, the consumer can write the DMA, which will refer the complaint to the company’s management. Of some 11,000 complaints received annually, says Lorna Christie, manager of the DMA’s ethics department, “approximately 75% are resolved satisfactorily.”
The U.S. Postal Service, interested in “preserving the integrity of the mails,” says McFeeley, can take criminal action against a company for mail fraud, or civil action for false representations--”falsely representing or implying,” McFeeley says, “that they’ll send you something, or will send it within a reasonable time, or that it will work, or that they guarantee money back.”
The Postal Service may act on consumer complaints or screen ads itself. The offer can be advertised anywhere and delivered by any means, but the consumer must order or pay by mail if the Postal Service is to exercise its principal remedy--”mail stop,” which intercepts consumer orders or payments before they reach the company.
‘Mail Order Rule’
Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission’s “mail order rule” only applies when the order is mailed, and its concern is not the quality of goods but their timely delivery. Under the rule, a company must ship within 30 days of receiving payment, or within the time specified (as in “allow six to eight weeks for delivery”), or give the consumer the option of canceling the order and getting a refund.
If a company hasn’t followed the rule, the FTC can sue it for both penalties and a promise never to misbehave again, which may or may not help the consumer who originally complained. Both the FTC and the Postal Service seek patterns of bad practice and don’t necessarily intercede in an individual case; the DMA does, of course, but its strength is limited to “peer pressure.”
The consumer is not without a weapon, however--if he has charged to a credit card number, by mail or phone. On the back of many credit statements--rarely read, barely understood--is an explanation of the consumer’s legal rights and how to exercise them in case of a billing error or quality dispute.
If the consumer can’t resolve a dispute about quality with the merchant, he can refuse to pay any amount still outstanding until the matter is settled, as long as the transaction exceeds $50 and involves a merchant in his home state or within 50 miles. Given those conditions and the inherent subjectivity of quality judgments, billing errors are easier to challenge. If the consumer writes his card issuer within 60 days of being charged for undelivered merchandise, the wrong item or the wrong amount, he can refuse to pay--without delinquency--while the issuer investigates, then corrects, adjusts or explains the charge.
But, conceivably, the billing error procedure may also serve in certain cases when goods are simply unacceptable. It may not go unchallenged, but, as one consumer points out, “the stuff sure wasn’t delivered as expected.”
