Albany Distributing Albany Headsets Takes Money for Services Not Rendered. Fraudulant Credit Cards processed using our merchant account ROCHESTER, New York

After agreeing to sell on eBay with what I was told was reduced, rock bottom prices, with in six weeks my prices for resale when way up. The first, a small increase with a promise from the sellers advocate that they would not go up for a long time, they raised their prices again within 6 weeks of that promise. A small increase on the product price, HUGE increase of $3.00 dollars on shipping per product starting Jan 2 2012, making Albany the highest cost reseller/drop shipper on the internet.

See their prices on the site and add $3.00 per product and keep in mind those product prices you see are more then they really are once you buy into to their drop shipping/resellers program.

Also keep in mind their policies on the site are the exact opposite of the policies they practices.
See below.
You do get charge shipping. You do get charged for returns even if it's their error.
Canadian shipments cost $19.95 per order as of Jan 2nd and all orders are charged a $3.00 shipping increase fee.

Did you get notified of a $3.00 per product increase due to shipping as well as the product price in general going up for Jan 2 2012?

I was told it's due to the smaller sales volume I do and that only small sellers get notified of this increase.
I was also told by other sellers who have not used Albany for a long time they did not get notified.
I would consider them small sellers, wouldn't you?

You won't find a notification on their site and no one I talked to got this notification.
Only me?

Do some research.
There are other companies out there with awesome return policies and reasonable costs with no hidden drop ship fees.

Yes, the increase is a dropship fee no matter how you slice it.

You may not get hit up for it at sign up but you will get it later down the road.

To start, take a look at their policies and general lack of maintenance on the sites home page which hasn't been updated since 2011.

Example shown to potential sellers before signing up.
http://www.albanydistributing.com/reseller-program.html

There's never a minimum spending commitment

Albany Distributing does not charge a handling fee, a drop ship fee, or have a minimum order requirement. How can we do this? We believe that the more resources we supply you, the more you will sell. In addition, our systems are as automated as possible to conserve our overhead. Albany Distributing requires our resellers to utilize our online ordering capabilities to help keep costs down.

Free FedEx 2Day Service shipping on all Plantronics products

Albany Distributing is proud to be a "Best Price" distributor for Plantronics headsets and accessories. However we felt that just wasn't enough. Albany Distributing has combined our Best Price with free FedEx 2Day Service shipping on all our Plantronics products. What is FedEx 2Day Service? Orders shipping with FedEx 2Day Service are guaranteed in 2 business days from the ship date.

We waive all Canadian border fees

Albany Distributing waives all import fees on all Canadian deliveries*. You must download, complete, and fax back our Canadian Shipment Authorization to qualify for this incentive.

* This offer is valid on Plantronics headsets and accessories only.


does not charge a handling fee, a drop ship fee
Added to their ship price.

Free FedEx 2Day Service shipping
You pay $3.00 per package fee.

free FedEx 2Day Service shipping
See above if you are a small time reseller.

There are other companies that honor the above.
Just call the manufacturer for references in your area.

If you wish to learn more about the practices of Albany, feel free to email me anytime.

See their prices on the site and add $3.00 per product and keep in mind those product prices you see are more then they really are once you buy into to their drop shipping/resellers program.

Did you get notified of a $3.00 per product increase due to shipping as well as the product price in general going up?

You won't find a notification on their site and no one I talked to got this notification.
Albany says the increase doesn't apply to high end sellers but the folks I talked to after telling my story hardly, if at all, makes any sales through them.
They did not get the notification.
Seems only I did.

The company and I are working on a solution. They have offered some good solutions and are working with me to rectify the situation.
This is good news for both of us and I'm hoping for a long term relationship with them if it works out.

As of now, I'm very happy with the site itself and the communication between us.

Will update again in the near future.

The purpose of this post is to provide an update regarding the Client's concerns.We have spoken with our Client and made the appropriate changes to their website (http://www.bluedollardays.com). The Client has stated that she is now satisfied with the changes by our Yahoo Store programmer and as  result, voluntarily withdrawn the credit card dispute that she had previously opened with her bank.

We are pleased that both our companies have been able to work together to reestablish our working business relationship with a positive outcome.

For any merchants reading this post...

Unfortunately, bad orders are quite common especially with newly launched stores in the belief of the fraudster that the store owner will be inexperienced. For any merchant reading this post, it is a good idea to review the links below to become more familiar with the warning signs of bad orders so that you can further protect your online business:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/store/order/retrieve/retrieve-04.html  

http://www.merchantequip.com/merchant-account-blog/36/what-does-a-fraudulent-transaction-look-like



http://www.dropshipaccess.com/education_read.php?quizID=7 



http://www.scottsanfilippo.com/articles/e-commerce-fraud-sucks-hints-to-reduce-the-rot

As of May 18 2012, Albany Distributing Inc, AKA Albanyheadsets com has launched bluedollardays.com to avoid refunds for services not rendered on their part. After 4 1/2 months, I finally filed chargebacks on those services not rendered through this company. A week later, these site appeared with my personal information which was not authorized with my signature but published on those websites.

At the time of those chargebacks, the CS (customer service) for the credit card charges verified bluedollardays.com as non existing.

Legal Notice:

Gale Capps no longer has any affiliation with the above companies.

Any legal action taken against these companies from May 18 2012 using bluedollardays, albanyheadsets or albany distributing Inc. involving other parties, purchases, or services will not involve Gale Capps in that action.

Gale was quoted a one-time fee of $250.

$250?
Do you even have the correct party you were dealing with or are there more issues with other resellers?

Albany's Contact signed by me below.

On-line Ecommerce Store Design Our designers will create a professional store design while ensuring that your new site supports the widest range of browsers on the widest range of platforms.
$199.00
One time
Automatic Order Retrieval (AOR)
This option allows Albany Distributing to automatically retrieve and process the orders placed by your customers.
$40.00
One time
Merchant Account Integration
This feature allows Albany Distributing to implement the Clients merchant account with their new online store.
$0.00
One time
Professional Internet Marketing Services
Directory submission: Albany Distributing will submit
your new online store to various internet directories
Content Writing: On a recurring basis (typically 2-3 times
per month) Albany Distributing will refresh your website
with new content about new products and promotions.
Blog Commenting: Albany Distributing will comment
about your new online store on 3rd party blog sites
relevant to your online store to create a flow of traffic.
Article Submission: Albany Distributing will create and
publish articles in your new online store/
Forum Posts: Albany Distributing will post material and
other content on forum sites relevant to the products
being sold in your new online store.
Social Media- Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon, Digg,
Bloglines, and Wordpress: These social media network
sites will be used to promote your new online store, as
well as to increase your sites traffic.
$150.00
One time
The Professional Internet
Marketing Services program will
run for a period of 12 months,
after which the client will be
subject to a monthly fee of $52.
This fee may be subject to
change at any time with or
without notice.
New Reseller Account Setup
Required fee to become an Albany Distributing reseller
and to re-sell Albany Distributings products through your
new online store.
$29.50
One time
Total Amount Due: $418.50

None of the above was provided.
There was also a charge of $223.00 for a customer support line.
These are standard start up charges for resellers who have drop shippers design and maintain their stores.
Again, do you even have the correct reseller here?

She also mentioned that she had a merchant account that she wanted to integrate with her store. For no additional charge, her pre-existing merchant account was integrated with the store.

Again, we had no merchant account on start up. ???
Never had one before. Never owned a business. We didn't even have a resellers permit until Matt, the representative for Albany, told us who to contact in our state to get one.
With out a resellers permit, you can't get a merchant account. ALL banks/merchant accounts require a resellers permit.

We received 7 orders total.
Only ONE order had tracking. The rest were non tangible items. The one that had tracking didn't have signature confirmation which were were told initially, it would or we would not have gone through with the sale.
Albany Distributing took it on themselves to even send it to the wrong address in Indiana which was not authorized with our then acquired merchant account. We would not ship to any place other then the billing address on file with the card. With out our consent, Albany did.

Albany said I'm inexperienced. I've been selling online for over 10 years. Longer then Albany Distributing inc has been in business.
As for my failing to read safety information, I'm the one that sent emails to Matt pointing out what is required from various locations on the net.
Here is one such link which was sent to Matt that had the general guidelines needed and what I was asking for as a reseller.
http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/chargeback-management-guidelines-for-visa-merchants.pdf
Albany Distributing, did not care about guidelines. There money was not at stake.

I was aware of a no refund policy but when it comes to no services rendered as per contract, that refund policy is out the window for breach of contract.
None of those things posted above were followed on Albany's side.
We did not have a store that was ours. Just shown a site and told it was ours with no way to control it on our end.
Our access was that of a general internet user surfing the internet. Nothing more. The site didn't even direct where it was supposed to but to albanyheadsets, another site which Albany owned.
Our money went to promoting that other site.

Those links posted by Albany are the very ones I sent Matt, Albany's resellers advocate.
Incredible they used my links to post here. I had sent these to Matt after he told me he never knew many of the basic rules.
I sent those and more because I told him I didn't want anyone else to run into this problem and I didn't want anyone else mislead, thinking Matt at that point, was very naive and didn't know general safety guidelines. Still thinking if they can follow what we require when it comes to orders, we can make up the chargebacks.
Unfortunately, while trying to speed up the process of orders, I listed one product on eBay to see how that would go.
It sold. Albany did not have this product. The store they said was ours was not maintained or updated resulting in my having to refund the eBay customer. In that, I started having my doubts any real product exists other then non tangible products, packages they sold on our behalf using our merchant processor.

Matt stated we'd make 4K a month. I never believed that. Sounded like a general sales pitch to me and never expected that much.
Any profit would be fine as long as I gained the original amount back I invested in this so called store that was never ours.

They didn't address any of the key points here. They are dishonest on what they did address or, they have the wrong reseller.

Their blatant use of other peoples merchant accounts is what is the issue.
The fact the contract was never followed on their end was also never addressed.

We have regained a small amount of money lost but it's nothing compared to the entire balance we lost due to Albanys shipping habits and assumptions.
The last transaction was finally for a tangible product. So we thought.
They took it on themselves to ship to an alternate address other then the one we processed.
We didn't find out about this until we needed the information for our merchant processor.
When we asked Matt why it was sent to Indiana, he said because the customer "said" he had added the address to his card. "Said" but never gave us the chance to check on this. Albany sent the product out on the word of a buyer at my expense and with out my knowledge.

One more time I'm going to ask this.
What reseller do you think you are addressing here?
Since the facts are so far off and do not apply to our situation, I think you are addressing the wrong reseller and the wrong dispute.

I almost forgot to mention.

Matt is now calling us using a Google throw away chat phone number which is untraceable representing a call from California.
This is a key point in that that should tell anyone right there how dishonest this company is and shady.

Albany Distributing is a wholesale/drop ship distributor of consumer electronics and telephony products.

 

The particular customer that wrote this complaint (Gale) came on board as a reseller in February of 2012 and began selling Albany products on eBay. Within a couple weeks of selling on eBay, Gale wanted to know how much it would cost to setup an online web store and have all the Albany products imported automatically so that she did not need to add items manually. Gale was quoted a one-time fee of $250.

 

She also mentioned that she had a merchant account that she wanted to integrate with her store. For no additional charge, her pre-existing merchant account was integrated with the store.



Short after Gales web store was launched the products on her store were submitted to Yahoo Shopping and Google Base for marketing purposes. Over a course of a two week period she received 6 orders and placed each of those orders with Albany so that the merchandise could be delivered to her customer. Each order was shipped and the FedEx tracking information was communicated to Gale. Over the next 45 days Gales merchant provider began reversing all the money that she initially received for each order because the purchases that came through to her store were proven to be fraudulent. The reversal means that the money Gale received was taken out of her bank account (this is called a Chargeback).



Unfortunately, fraudulent orders are quite common especially with stores that are new. Additionally, Yahoos help pages clearly state that newly opened stores are more often targeted for fraud, in the belief that the store owner will be inexperienced. Yahoos website also lists many warning signs and clues to help store owners detect potential fraud (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/store/order/retrieve/retrieve-04.html). Gale failed to read any of the information that Yahoo lists on their website regarding fraudulent orders. Also, Gales lack of understanding about managing an ecommerce store including her lack of understanding about a merchant account and how to manage one had extremely unfortunate consequences.



She demanded her money back from Albany for the purchases that her bank took the money back on, however her demand was quickly denied. Gale was informed multiple times that Albany assumes no risk or liability for any order that she places on our site, unless the error is Albanys. As a business owner, she needs to accept liability of the chargebacks as she failed to research the orders to make sure they were order legitimate.



Here are links to other sites that explain more about fraudulent transactions:



http://www.merchantequip.com/merchant-account-blog/36/what-does-a-fraudulent-transaction-look-like



"Nearly every online business will run into a visitor that is trying to make fraudulent purchases on their website at some point. Unfortunately, fraud has become synonymous with online business. There are so many ways that fraud can be committed through a website, with several desired outcomes for fraudsters. Not all fraudulent transactions are made to obtain merchandise. Businesses will always suffer more from fraud than consumers! Fraudulent orders can be very costly because a merchant is setup to lose their shipped goods and later lose when the real card owner charges back the fraudulent purchase. Most fraudulent orders are never recovered after they are shipped."



http://www.dropshipaccess.com/education_read.php?quizID=7

A high volume of orders placed soon after opening your business may indicate fraudulent activity. Con artists prey on new online merchants, because they know that new merchants are often inexperienced. Defrauders find new merchants by obtaining lists of domains which were recently purchased. If you start receiving orders before implementing a marketing campaign, investigate the customers and orders placed to look for additional suspicious activity.



http://www.scottsanfilippo.com/articles/e-commerce-fraud-sucks-hints-to-reduce-the-rot/     

The address Albanydistribution.com gave us was obviously fake that anyone can spot.

Albanydistribution.com was meant as www.albanydistributing.com.com aka albanyheadsets.com
Albany Headsets is no longer in service or searchable online.