Got a curtesy call from my visa card this morning. They wanted to know about my dealings with Best Prices Storable Foods. I'm just a little paranoid. They wanted to know if I had gotten what I'd ordered & if I had any complaints. Sounds like the heat's turned up on Best Prices. I just thought this call was really strange.

-- mostly lurking (mostly lurking@podunk.texas), April 29, 1999

Answers

While I have NOT been called by VISA, I did send a letter of inquiry about the status on a $3,000 food order placed in August, 1998 for which my VISA was billed in mid-March. I did receive a good order from Best Prices in January placed in mid-October ( a very reasonable time frame) but have received no word on when to expect the eight month old order. I'll hold on my final opinion on Best Prices until I get a response (or lack thereof) by mid May (my requested time frame for food in hand or VISA credit).

-- Paul J. Urquhart III (paulUrquhart@worldnet.att.net), April 29, 1999.

I ordered $800 worth of stuff from them last July. They said it would be shipped in September. Actually was shipped in February. But they didn't charge my card until it shipped.

Kind of pissed me though that most of the stuff re-sold and drop shipped, ie came from Walton Foods etc.

-- a (a@a.a), April 29, 1999.

I ordered my "pick & choose" order mid October. I was supposed to get it mid March. On 4/1/99, I e-mailed Best Prices requesting the status of the order & they e-mailed me back with the phone number of their supplier that was causing the hold up. I thought that giving me that number was a nice thing to do because they in effect were giving me their source. Obviously, Best Prices is not a manufacturer of dehydrated food. I contacted the source several times & finally got a ship date that they met (my entire order was drop shipped to me from that supplier), but I think that my calling them made a difference. Evidently, if you make up your own order rather than going with a prepack, your order causes the supplier problems and takes longer to fill. All in all, I'm happy with Best Prices. They always were honest with me and treated me fairly. Even though I did have a little trouble getting my order, I believe that it was beyond Best Prices control.

-- mostly lurking (mostly lurking@podunk.texas), April 29, 1999.

Lumen foods (soybean.com) has a 4-week shipping date on Y2K foods (my orders have been here within 3 weeks), 48 hours on everything else. Have ordered from them for nearly 10 years, satisfied with products, service, price.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 30, 1999.

Credit card companies have AI programs "knowing their customers" for them. Out-of-the-ordinary transactions are checked, as one common cause of these is that the card has been stolen. (The card company often notices this before the card owner does). If your bulk food purchase was the first such, this is almost certainly the explanation of the call.

Personally this doesn't bother me, but if you don't want to leave a data trail then don't use a credit card!

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), April 30, 1999.