Today I finally succumbed to desire, and ordered an HTC Desire from eXpansys, a company who I first heard of in the UK, and who also seem to have a German presence. When I say ordered, I mean ‘tried to order’ because they made it quite difficult for me to give them my money.
I’ve bought quite a few high value items online using my credit card over the years – a high end digital SLR, expensive camera lenses, a good quality HD TV, PC parts amounting to over £1,000, and so on. I often get presented with a Verified by Visa or Mastercard Securecode prompt, and I always use that given the chance, and I’ve never had any trouble making a purchase.
Never had any trouble until now that is. In order to purchase a mobile phone, by credit card, online, eXpansys required me to send them a copy of my passport, the front and reverse sides of the credit card, and a household bill to prove I live at the delivery address. For reasons known only to themselves, they don’t use either of the two additional security mechanisms above. They do helpfully provide a way of submitting the documents electronically, one at a time. I don’t have a scanner though, so I had to photograph my passport, then the front and back of my credit card, and redact out some numbers for security, re-size the images to a sensible size, and then send them to eXpansys. I really hope they have good data control policies and systems seeing as they now have a significant set of personal data.
Anyway, despite ordering today, my documents won’t be verified until tomorrow, and then they will dispatch my order, assuming their stock has arrived (according to the lady on the phone). Seeing as the website told me they have 100+ units in stock, I’m not entirely sure why there might be some issue about whether they can send me one.
I wait with anticipation to see if they actually manage to get my phone to me in the time they state.