"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
Ok... Sometimes you just gotta wonder. Yeah I'm sure I'll get some
judgmental superiority replies, but I thought some folks might need a
reminder about how the world sometimes doesn't make sense.

Last night I went on-line and ordered some lead screws from Roton to
repair a little CNC machine I have been playing with. I checked my credit
card balance to make sure there was enough available credit to make the
purchase... and there was with a plenty of spare. I was annoyed that
Roton does not have a freight calculator in their website, but I didn't
think any more of it. I just figured if they raped me on "handling" I
just wouldn't buy anything else from them.

Well, they don't process the payment on the card in real time. Nor do
they just process it later after adding on the freight charges. Instead
their system puts a hold on the credit card effectively reducing your
available credit for the amount of the materials ordered. Then they
process it manually later when they calculate they freight charges.

I got a call this morning letting me know that my card had been declined.
Since I had checked the balance prior to the order I was very surprised.
My balance had not changed, but my available credit had been reduced by
the amount of the lead screws. Their own system had caused the problem
that lead to my card being declined.

So.... In summary. If purchasing on-line from Roton (or probably other
vendors who do not process order charges in real time or add freight
charges later) you need to have MORE THAN TWICE the available credit as
the amount of the materials you want to buy.

Sigh. I just cancelled the order. They seemed peeved at me. Oh, well.

As a side note. In the size I wanted McMaster turned out to have a better
price per foot for the precision lead screws I needed. I got my
anti-backlash nuts for them from Dumpster CNC.