Cengage Textbooks Sales Policy

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I just wanted to let y'all know about a new policy at Cengage/CengageBrain with their textbook purchasing.

 

I recently purchased a textbook for my oldest via their online store, received confirmation via email and waited for delivery.  I never received further communications and traced my order back through the online account to discover that the company had cancelled my order.  I received no notice of the cancellation.  I phoned customer service and discovered that they have a new policy with regard to credit card fraud-purchases where the billing and delivery addresses don't match are automatically flagged and cancelled.  The reps were very kind, placed my order again over the phone and added expedited delivery at no charge.  However, if I hadn't been tracking the order status myself I would never have known.

 

I just wanted to put this info out there as I know it is a common textbook purchasing site for college students and I would think that they would often have a mismatch in billing and shipping addresses.

[In The Great White North]

Apparently, this is random, as dd got the textbook I ordered on my credit card.

[Lanny]

Not sure, but I suspect this is the same company that was mentioned in a WTM thread, a month or 2 ago, by someone who works in a CC?  If this is the company, they are in bankruptcy, but that probably has nothing to do with the issue the OP mentioned. Here's a link:

http://www.cengage.com/restructuring/

 

BTW, I remember calling the credit card issuer, when I needed to use a different shipping address for a purchase (and the shipping address sometimes was in a different country than the billing address) and they would put that information in their record, so the transaction could clear OK.

 

But, yes, some companies will not ship to a different address that one uses for PayPal or a credit card billing address.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

This wasn't an issue with my credit card issuer.  Cengage was very open about the fact that it was the result of a new policy, clearly new over the summer or even more recently.  It is possible that every employee in the orders department isn't aware of the policy yet.  They were very willing to fix the issue on the spot but I was concerned that their lack of communication could lead to folks not knowing their texts wouldn't arrive.