Will Toyglobe.com Ruin My Childrens Christmas? charged my card right away, do not respond to emails Saint Laurent Quebec

The items I ordered from Toyglobe are for my 3 children for christmas. Right now, i doubt that we'll be having a nice time on December 25th.... unless something miraculous happens.

I placed an order on 11/16/2006 (order # 168174). I carefully read all their policies, paying specific attention to the section where they say that they will not bill me if the items are out of stock. Guess what? they slugged my Amex for over AUD$500 on the day the order was placed. Now that told me instantly that they had the items in stock. I don't think they were... i could be wrong.

I am in Australia, and admittedly they do state that international orders take a bit longer. I thought i'd chase them up on 11/17 to see if they could give me an ETA. there's no phone number on their site, so i used the online form. No reply.

Getting anxious, i read their policies again on 11/21 and noticed that they now said 14 working days for international orders, so i kindly asked them if i could change the ship-to address to my warehouse in Pennsylvania to speed things up (i own an online business in the USA). No reply.

Getting even more anxious, i started to read their website from end to end and it wasn't until i read the order confirmation email they sent me on 11/16 that the alarms bells really started to ring. They state that i gave them permission to make any adjustments to the amount of the order, and that they could just go ahead and charge the extra... They wrote:

"DISCLAIMER: I, the cardholder, acknowledge all the store policies and give Toyglobe.com permission to charge my credit card for the above order and to make the necessary adjustments to the order as it is indicated in the store policies. Filling out this order form and entering my CVV number acts as my acknowledgement and signature on a sales draft."

Remember that this statement was sent to me AFTER i placed the order, and after they slugged my card for $500+

On their checkout page it says something quite different:

"By checking this box, I give TOYGLOBE.com authorization to charge my credit card and I have read and agree the store policies. This acts as my signature on the sales draft."

Nowhere in their policies do they talk about being able to charge extra without your permission - i've got printouts of all the pages.

So like i said, the alarm bells were ringing, and i tried to contact them again. On wednesday 11/22/2006 i again asked for some feedback on when my order would ship. No reply.

Yesterday 11/27/2006 I tried again. This time i asked specifically when it would ship, why it took 14 days to dispatch an international order, and if it would suit them better to ship to my PA warehouse again. No reply.

So i contacted American Express. At least someone is on my side! They advised me to try once more to get a reply today, and if not, they would get me my money back.

All i want is what i ordered and i'll be happy. As i said, i own an online business in the USA. I have 35,000+ customers and we focus on Customer Service before anything else......

Glen
Gold Coast
Australia