Caiman on Amazon

[Ken Dryden]

As someone who has bought and sold a few things on half.com and Amazon, I find it troubling when they made the switch of billing the customer's credit card immediately instead of waiting for the vendor to confirm that the item was in stock. I tried ordering a new release for a Christmas gift, though I had to send three PMs to get the seller to respond that they were out of stock.

There ought to be a 48 hour window for a seller to confirm before a customer's credit card can be billed.

[Ron S]

Ken, Amazon now bills credit cards for Marketplace purchases only upon notification by the Marketplace seller that the item has been shipped. It used to bill immediately upon the order being placed, but switched over to this new system (called "charge when ship"--Google those words in quotes along with Amazon to get more details) within the past year.

[Ken Dryden]

That's good news, but Half needs to catch up with Amazon.