| CUSTOMER FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. Is your ordering payment page secure? 2. Why won't my order complete? Why am I getting error messages? 3. How will I know if my order completes? 4. When will I receive my product order? 5. When will I receive my receipt? 6. Why was I charged twice? How do I get a refund for duplicate orders? 7. Do you take orders by phone? 8. Can you bill my company for an order? 9. Can I call you with customer service questions? 10. Do you have any free samples of your product? Scroll down for responses.
1. Q: Is your ordering payment page secure?
A: Absolutely. Visa®, MasterCard®, and American Express® have strict, set quality standards that merchants must follow to be compliant with their established security measures. The shopping cart system vendor follows them as does the gateway and merchant account processor vendors.
The page that is secured is the payment page where you place your payment (i.e. credit card) information. The prior ordering page is not secure because that is not a payment page -- just a shopping cart with your items in the cart. It is the next page -- where you enter your credit card information -- that is secured.
Usually you can tell this security measure in your Web browser. For instance, in Internet Explorer you'll usually see an icon (picture/symbol) of a lock in your address bar top right. Sometimes in some browsers you may see this lock symbol somewhere else on the page. Also, often the address on a secure page will start off as https (note the letter "s" there), not http. 2. Q: Why won't my order complete? Why am I getting error messages? A: If you are having a problem completing your online order after submitting payment and your order does not complete, it is because you are entering a billing address that does not match the one on your credit card statement. Once you enter the exact address and zip code that matches the one on file by your credit card issuer, your order will complete successfully within seconds. This address verification procedure prevents fraudulent usage of your credit card. If you do not know the exact address your credit/debit card issuer has on file, call your credit card issuer using the 800# on your credit/debit card and they can easily tell you the address on file. The AVS error (address verification -- no match on the street and zip) is the reason 90% of the time that U.S. customer transactions do not complete. If you never received this error when placing an online order elsewhere with the same information, it is because that online retailer was not using the AVS fraud check option -- which benefits you (should you lose your credit cards or someone steals them and tries to use them). Much less common is your credit card may not have sufficient funds or your credit card issuer is blocking the transaction for some reason. Call your credit card/debit card issuer if your card is being declined. Ask them to verify that you are entering the correct address. 3. Q: How will I know if my order completes? A: If your order completes successfully, you will immediately receive a link to the product information in your browser window and similar information will be sent to the e-mail you entered in your payment address. This happens 24/7 -- so you may order any time and instantly receive your digital order. If your order does not complete successfully, you will get an error message and/or no order product download information will appear in your Web browser or inbox. In that case, see the question and answer above for possible reasons your payment/order process did not complete. 4. Q: When will I receive my product order? A: You will receive your order immediately upon successfully completing the payment process. The product download information usually appears in your browser but if not (or you close the browser without looking), it's also sent to your e-mail address. You have 24 hours to download your order from the shopping cart (those links). After that the links expire because that is your shopping cart and you need to save the digital product to your computer (i.e. much like taking your bags with you and out of the shopping cart when you leave the supermarket). If your link expires before you downloaded and saved your order to your personal computer, contact the publisher for link reactivation. 5. Q: When will I receive my receipt? A: A receipt is automatically sent to your e-mail address by the automated shopping cart system. If you don't see it, your Internet Service Provider/E-mail Provider may have filtered the e-mail and sent it to wherever you've set "junk mail" to go. If you need another receipt, contact the publisher and an additional one will be sent to your e-mail manually by the publisher. 6. Q: Why was I charged twice? How do I get a refund for duplicate orders? A: If you place an order with the wrong address/zip for the credit card and the order does not complete (which it will not), it often will show up on your credit/debit card statement as "pending" or "authorized." This is not a charge by Albee Publishing Company (The Effective Admin). This is your bank's computer putting a "hold" (authorization) on funds it thinks you want to spend because you told it so.
When that doesn't happen due to your order not completing because it doesn't pass the next step after checking for sufficient funds which is fraud checks, these funds never leave your account. The funds revert to your active bank balance after your bank releases them.
Call your bank if you need to know when it will release its hold on these "pending" funds. These funds never made it to the merchant and are still in your bank account under your bank's control. They are NOT duplicate charges or duplicate orders. Often banks release the hold on your funds within three days.
However, if you accidentally placed a true duplicate order, you will actually receive an order confirmation and receipt for each order including the duplicate order (or the duplicate order and intentional order will be on one order if you added the same product to your online order shopping cart by mistake twice or more).
In that case, send me an e-mail and your receipt if you have it (the latter is optional because I can look up your order but a helpful way to point out to me the duplicate order). If you have a receipt but it's only for what you ordered and you are NOT seeing an additional "completed" (only a pending) charge on your bank/credit card statement, then it is probably NOT a duplicate order. It's probably what's described above (just a pending, authorized amount your bank put on hold that will revert back to your active balance shortly).
E-mail duplicate order refund requests to: karen@albeepublishing.com
7. Q: Do you take orders by phone?
A: No. The Effective Admin (Albee Publishing Company) does NOT have a telephone customer service support/orders department at this time and thus does not prefer phone orders. Ordering online through The Effective Admin Store and online shopping cart system is the preferred and most efficient method of ordering.
However, there are alternative methods for payment which include paying for your order by check by postal mail and paying by credit card information submitted by fax.
The Effective Admin uses a secure online third party fax vendor service and at no time does your fax reach The Effective Admin via e-mail. The publisher manually retrieves the faxed orders from its online secure fax account. (In fact, never submit orders via e-mail because no e-mail anywhere is secure).
Credit card fax orders are then completed manually through an online computer terminal (so the process is much like submitting your own order through the shopping cart -- same credit card processing terminal, just someone other than yourself entering the information, but directly through the secure credit card processor/merchant account and not through the also secure shopping cart system).
Checks by postal mail are processed by a bank and The Effective Admin manually sends your order by e-mail once the check clears. This is a slower way of receiving your order than using the online shopping cart at The Effective Admin Store but is absolutely acceptable. In fact, it's a method sometimes used by companies that prefer employees do a check request for purchases over certain amounts and don't allow p-cards or other credit card usage for these type purchases.
This is an acceptable payment format (an alternative to online ordering through the shopping cart) if you are using USD on a check drawn on a U.S. bank.
Click here for the postal mail/fax ordering form.
8. Q: Can you bill my company for an order?
A: Yes, Albee Publishing Company (The Effective Admin) can send an invoice to your company by postal mail, e-mail, or fax. However, you will not receive your order until the payment is received and clears. So payment is a requirement prior to receiving any order.
9. Q: Can I call you with customer service questions?
A: The Effective Admin (Albee Publishing Company) is primarily an online business. The most efficient way to reach Karen Porter, The Administrative Professional Job Performance and Career Success Coach and Founder, President, and Operator of The Effective Admin is by e-mail: karen@albeepublishing.com
E-mails requiring a response are responded to within 24-48 hours, usually much sooner (during traditional week days/work hours and sometimes off hours). E-mails not requiring a response are not responded to.
If you do choose to call, use the phone number provided on your product order receipt. Please be prepared to leave a voice mail. Telephone voice mail messages requiring a response are returned within 24-48 hours, usually sooner.
You also may leave messages on the telephone voice mail system not requiring responses but that require action (e.g. you want me to fax you an employer i.d. number/W-9 form; you want me to e-mail you verification that your credit/debit card was not charged a duplicate order, etc.). If you do this, please spell your e-mail address or leave your fax number so I may reply with a confirmation or fill the request within 24-48 hours. However, do NOT leave credit/debit card ordering information on the telephone voice mail; these will not be filled. Place orders by the online shopping cart, postal mail, or fax as described earlier in question 7.
If you would like to schedule an appointment for a telephone conference with Karen Porter, this is possible too. In that case, please e-mail karen@albeepublishing.com with suggested dates and times for the phone conference as well as the subject matter. You will receive a confirmation of the telephone appointment by e-mail. These conferences may be scheduled for customer service or other business matters. If you are an administrative professional seeking a consultation about job and career matters, please see the information sold at The Effective Admin Store. If your topic is not specifically covered (and many aren't), send your questions, issue, or dilemma to the Admin Pro Coach address here.
10. Q: Do you have any free samples of your product?
A: Product samples, if available, are usually posted by the products at The Effective Admin Store. For example, by The Effective Admin newsletter product, you'll find some sample newsletter pages in a PDF file at a link there. If at any time you have more questions about the product(s) content, don't hesitate to send an e-mail to Karen Porter at karen@albeepublishing.com .
Warmest Regards, Karen
Karen Porter The Administrative Professional Job Performance and Career Success Coach™
and Founder and President
PS: While you're here, take a look at some of my products available right now! Click here to see if any can help you on the job or in your career today.
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