Phantom order

[martinkay]

A customer has just called to ask "where's my item"... on an order I never received, supposedly placed a week to 10 days ago. Having established that they do seem to be phoning the correct place and did seem to have gone through my site (not someone else's) to place their order, and got to the confirmation page on the web site (but which they don't seem to have printed off), the customer was unable to provide me with an order number (they should have had an email confirmation) and there is no record of their name or email address anywhere in the order pile and of course they are worried about what happened to their card details.

Any guesses as to what might have gone wrong? Even if they had put their email address in wrong, I would still have got the order, surely?

[RuralWeb]

I would be very careful as we quite often get calls like this from scammers also we get a few from people who have ordered from our competitors and insist it was us because when they type what they have ordered into google we are top of the list so it MUST HAVE BEEN US.

Without an order number and proof of payment then its on your bike mate.

[leehack]

Time wasters Martin or people blaming you for not doing what they should have done. No records and no financial transactions to look at and no emails. Tell them the invisible man will bring it down their chimney on Xmas day.

[martinkay]

Well that's what I would normally think, except that it was an old lady obviously buying a present for a grandson or something, she got her husband to phone first and then she took over the call, not your obvious scammers. Anyway I've now sold out of what they wanted so I sent them elsewhere, but I was just curious to know if there could ever be a scenario where a customer sees the receipt page but I don't get the order.

[RuralWeb]

except that it was an old lady

Not the little old lady trick

[leehack]

Not the little old lady trick

I tried to take my cynical hat off, but i came up with the same conclusion i'm afraid. If they did really do it, there will be a payment somewhere surely?

[pinbrook]

if you use a PSP you will have the payment....

if you use SSL you won't have taken any money from the customer... which they should have noticed

[martinkay]

I asked them if they had seen the money go from their card and they said they haven't had their statement yet. And it didn't go to Paypal. There's nothing in the orders or payment pending list, so for sure I won't have taken their payment. "Oh well it looks like your web site is not working" she said. But my guess is that it was a case of PEBCAC.

[papermilldirect]

Go on.... Pebcac?

[martinkay]

Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer.

[TraceyHand]

Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer.

lol
acronym of the day!!

[papermilldirect]

LOL I can so use that at work. heh!

[RuralWeb]

A very odd thing happened today along the lines of the OP. I had a copy of an order reciept email sent to my blackberry but the order items and payment was blank, everything else was normal. OK I thought all will become clear when I download the order. 4 hours later I checked the orders and there were several others but the one I was looking for was missing.

Trying to get to the bottom of it at the moment but Ive never seen anything like it before.

[TraceyHand]

I maybe get 1 "blank" order every 6 months or so.
Sometimes no customer details whatsoever..sometimes no orderlines at all.
Usually followed by a genuine order complete with details and, on the occasion where I've had a "blank orderlines" order but with customer details, it's been the same customer.
Always the customer is oblivious...and I have even had occasion (I can think of 3 times in total...in 7 years) where I have downloaded an order with the order number of 000000000000 and Actinic has thrown a hissy fit as soon as it hits the pending tab!

Gremlins in the system, methinks!

[RuralWeb]

Hmmmm - very odd