Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL From: SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: ZIP CHIP SCANDAL - FIGHT BACK Message-ID: <8801181057.aa00294@SMOKE.BRL.ARPA> Date: 16 Jan 88 19:18:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 48 Re: Brad Olive ZIP CHIP SCANDAL - FIGHT BACK If you bought the Zip Chip (or anything else) and charged it using a bank credit card you can cancel the payment for up to one year EVEN if you've already paid the credit card company. Details are in Consumer Reports from several months ago, but the gist of it is: 1) Write a letter to the vendor indicating that you have not received the product and don't believe it has been shipped (especially if you can refer to the time and date of any phone calls to the vendor during which you learned that indeed the product has not been shipped). 2) Point out in the letter that it is a violation of their agreement with the credit card collector for them to post a charge for merchandise which they have not shipped. 3) Send a copy of the letter to the credit card service center address (it's on your monthly statement) along with a request that they withhold (or recind) payment. If you subtract the disputed charge from the payment you send the credit card company, you will not be charged a finance charge as long as the charge is unresolved (that is you can withhold or recind payment forever unless the vendor can prove that that UPS or the Post Office or someone has missent the shipment). I NEVER pay MasterCard for merchandise I've not recieved. On two occassions I've disputed charges as above. In the first, MasterCard cancelled the charge altogether after confirming nonshipment (I did eventually get the software, and the shipper had to repost the charge as if it were an entirely new and separate order). The second time I got the merchandise after about 45 days, so I paid the balance on my next statement and that resolved it. There was no finance charge in either case. It seems to me that if MasterCard and Visa find they each have some thousands of dollars in uncollectiable claims on Zip Technologies, that Zip will know about it. Although each bank runs their own operations, information about (and legal action against) "deadbeats" is centralized (its more economical that way). Enough money seems to be at stake here to justify reasonably high powered talent (more than you and I could economically employ on our own). --------------------- ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Murphy A. Sewall BITNET: SEWALL@UCONNVM School of Business Admin. UUCP: ...ihnp4!psuvax1!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL University of Connecticut