Thanks for chiming in Stevez. I wondered if there was something like that. Visa said there is no reason and no extra fees except a phone call. Maybe they couldn't or didn't want to explain the retailer fee structure with me. I wonder if any other retailer could tell us what sort of fees there is. It can't be much right. Especially for online retailers who do almost all of their business on credit card.

I always thought that Visa was the best way to deal with that stuff. If this is starting to be a common thing I'll probably just drum up a couple pieces of ID and open a US account. Not hard.
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Cards good. Order was fine, shipping address was fine. When I gave her my home address she said sorry we have no way of knowing your Visa is authentic. I said sure you do, it's a Visa. It's good worldwide. She said no it's not possible. So I called Visa because this was the first time a Visa retailer ever declined my Visa and the guy actually laughed. He said they just don't want your business.

But you might have a point. Maybe she didn't want to bother. I wonder if her boss would have liked it. I was sending a 700 dollar order.
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Sorry I must have missed the part on the CI checkout page where you list your nationality. :-)
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It's there, but you gotta look. You have to pick a state in the drawdown box. I haven't got one.

I know. It's weird.
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I've not had my card denied for overseas purchases. Just sayin'.... Sounds like a CI only policy - weird.

CI appears to take p@y-P@l now, which is confusing to me given that online service's disdain for tobacco.

Good luck Polk, hope you find what you're looking while you're down here.
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Surprisingly, we have PP here to. It came in along with free will. :-)

Thanks for the warm welcome Col. Already done. Orders in, no problem. No issues at all but for the CI try. Always enjoy my time down there greatly too. You guys are really great. Always fun.

Not a big deal in this instance really. But something worth discussing for sure. Probably most didn't see the larger implications here, being a cigar forum and all. But we can look into it deeper. You fellas do more business with us than any other country you deal with. More than China even. And about ten times more than Saudi Arabia. I don't know how many of you know it but we just about double your Saudi imports of oil, you get twice as much from us as you do them. And you haven't had to fight or lose men for any of it. Well since we burned down the Whitehouse anyway. :-)

I know, I know. :-)

I wouldn't blame anyone for not knowing this stuff. I've seen CNN and Fox News.
:-):-)

And we get lots back. More than just products and dollars too.

So it was surprising that a US retailer would think my business is bad. It's a rare case for sure. And I haven't heard anyone else here, yet anyway. But I was really curious. I'm glad to find out that this isn't common. I hope it doesn't happen the other way either.

Probably best to keep the economies friendly and completely open right. If it were common that we refused business with each other we would have some real economical problems. Something the US doesn't need any more of right now right. It's because we don't have problems that most of us don't know how important the relationship really is. It doesn't make news. Probably why some people looked at this thread and said "WHO CARES". But it's the most important business relationship both countries have. So it deserves some respect. On all levels, from both sides.

Thats it for me. I'm tired. Next time more on smoke I promise.
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bump
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They don't want your business and don't have balls to say it. They should've offered an alternate solution for you if it was really a "Visa" issue. What BS. I would not business with them from here on in.
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I still say it's not the company, it's the CSR who he spoke with. Bad customer service reps can hurt a business badly.
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Having traveled on business all over Europe for a few years I have never had my Visa card denied where Visa is accepted. Hotels, meals, gifts, cigars, you name it. It is definetly up to the merchant if they will accept it or not. Cigars "International" does not seem so international eh?
Im sure with a little looking, whatever they have that you're looking for you can find somewhere else that will be happy to do business with you.
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That's just crazy. Wow.
On the other hand, I hope it's working. I wouldn't put any bets on it, but who knows?
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One other thought...
Many retailers don't want to take a cc from one place and ship to another. ESPECIALLY if the cc is from one country and shipping is to another.
The opportunity for fraud is huge, and for an American to come and try to find, let alone prosecute a criminal across borders would be just plain impossible.
Heck, with Ppal you can't ship anywhere but your own address.
I can definately see that logic.
If they went to Canadian officials and said "Hey, we sent cigars to somewhere in the US for this Canadian so he could avoid Canadian taxes and skirt Canadian law and this bad man stiffed us by stopping payment after he hauled the smokes across the border", what would the law in Canada say?
CI has absolutely no recourse, not to mention the fact that they've colluded in an illegal act.
If you look at it from that direction, it's simply intelligent business. They'd have to have rocks in their heads to even put themselves in that kind of position, right?
It may be a stretch, but I'm sure it's happened and parties have gotten burned.
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:-)
This is what I was thinking when I read the first post.
I'm sure CI doesn't want to tell you on the phone, "we think you might be using a stolen card number." Using a Canadian card to ship to a US address would seem a little fishy to me.
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Absolutely. :-)
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I would've offered the OP an alternate way of payment than Visa to complete the transaction. It would've made sense if CI said they had policies on shipping to other than the CC address when international, but they did not.

How about a bank wire? Mailed Cert Check? Scan of ID and Credit Card...
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This. A quality vendor would have found a way to allow a legitimate customer to pay while still covering their backs against fraud, especially since the order in question was for a considerable dollar amount. How they handled it was simply bad business, but that's pretty much how the big boys roll these days; they're so huge and do so much volume that they don't bother taking care of people on an individual basis. Take your business somewhere deserving, there are many smaller vendors in the U.S. that would love your business and have exemplary customer service.
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If you had called visa and added the second ship to address to the allowed list, even for a one time deal, it would have gone through.

I use a company card and ship to other locations other than billing address. Most of the time using a second address will stall or kill the shipping. Just my findings over the years.
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Thanks everyone,

Lots of great thoughts. Since this isn't a common issue I really don't care about it very much. If this happened often I would be concerned. And not just in this cigar business. So I'm glad I didn't hear that this happens often.

There are lots of options for me. It's no problem at all. I can have them shipped right to my door if I like. Or obviously physically pick them up in Chicago. Or other retailers will take the order as I planned it. And the retailer has there own options as well of course. Some of the points brought up here enlightened me a little. I had no intentions of fraud or anything. And we are allowed to bring back 50 cigars each duty free, so that isn't an issue either. It perfectly legal. But that's a good point I think.

But still, the truth is that millions of people are doing cross border commerce, something like half a trillion dollars per year. So it's a bit ignorant to assume something fishy. Also the slight fees might be a cross border concern, but I think maybe a tiny one, Still not sure on that. It was probably just a lazy rep. Or more likely an ignorant one.
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I don't know if it is in fact "ignorant" when credit card fraud is also a 9 billion dollar a year problem. Scott raised some interesting points in his post, and being in law enforcement I tend to agree.
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I don't know if this is their logic, but a couple of your assumptions are wrong. First, they have not "colluded in an illegal act" by selling cigars to a Canadian, any more than if we buy CD's, books etc. online. Second, they have no knowledge or responsibility about what the Canadian does after he picks them up in the States. Canadians travel to the US by the millions, we are entitled to purchase legal items and have them shipped to American addresses.
Obviously they can sell to whom they want, but this isn't in any way illegal.
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