LOL, that's a long story but I'm willing to provide the folks here with a story to chuckle about:

After hearing of the Euro release and expected US release a week later, I was cruising around on the Nokia site trying to see if I could slyly get to an ordering page for the 770 like that one person did on the Euro site a coupd of weeks back. Looking at the HTML links, I figured if I had Nokia's item number (not the model number, the one they use as an item id # on the direct sales site) I might be able to get to it. So, I figured I'd take a stab calling them Monday morning to see if they had that item # in the system even if they weren't accepting orders yet.

I start out asking about availability and the rep says they have them in stock ready to ship! Alright, forget about the item #, I'll just order one. So, I proceed to give her my info. She mentions something odd at the end. I don't know if it's only for orders taken by phone or what, but they have a "verification process" to confirm orders over a certain amount. It didn't have anything to do with adresses or anything like that since my billing, shipping and address on file with my CC company are all the same. I guess it's just something they do to protect against fraud.

She says the process takes 24-48 hours. What? I've bought from 100s of companies in amounts significantly higher than the $350 and never had to deal with that unless it was an international purchase (I imported a Japanese PSP from Hong Kong when it launched last December). Ok, I don't like it, but I figure it might not take as long as they say.

The next day I go to the order status section of the Nokia website to check it. It just says "Open Order" and stays that way all day. No contact from the credit division to verify the order but the online status screen showed all my info correctly so I figure it should go through ok. This morning I go to check the order online and its gone. No record of the order found or something like that. What the?

So, of course, I call them up. The rep tells me that the credit dept tried to contact me on Monday and left a message. We verify that the number they have on file is indeed my home number. I check caller ID and my answering machine - nada. I even ask my wife if she took a call from them or heard a message on the machine and deleted it - nope. What's odd is that she says they ususally give you 72 hours to verify before cancelling the order. I think maybe it has something to do with it being pre-release, but ask again about availability and she says it shows in stock ready to ship.

The only thing she can do is re-submit the order. I ask if I can skip all this waiting and just be connected to the credit folks to verify immediately. No dice as they don't open until 9AM but she does leave a message with them to try and expedite the process. Not wanting to leave it up to them getting back to me or just never contacting me at all, I wait until after 9 and call them again to try and speak with the credit folks.

Unfortunately, it's 9 CST not EST so they're still not in. This rep is very helpful and says he can verify the info himself (why couldn't the first rep do that?). He asks me the billing address, billing phone, and CC info. After that he puts me on hold to leave the credit guy a message that he has already verified the order and that it can be released for processing and shipping.

I wait a couple of hours then call back to check status to see if it has indeed gone through (keep in mind that I'm supposed to get an email confirmation when it does and I hadn't gotten it yet). Guess what? They screwed up again. This rep tells me that the credit folks did speak with American Express and had some sort of mismatch in the billing info for the order and the billing info on file with AMEX so the charge was declined. Are you kidding me? I've been using AMEX for years and I've been at this new address over a year and never had a problem ordering (including the international PSP order that occurred after I moved and updated my CC billing info).

We double check the order's billing info and I give them a Visa instead and encourage the whole speed up thing with the credit folks. I then call AMEX who verifies that my info is the same as it has been for over a year. AMEX verifies that they saw an authorization come through from Nokia today. Obviously, there's a problem on Nokia's end.

So, I call back again to Nokia. I get the same rep who took my redo order this morning. I explain everything to her and when she shows some signs of resistance, I ask for her manager. Of course, the manager is on another call so I hold. However, to the rep's credit, she goes ahead and tries to contact the credit folks directly (they don't give you a direct # for that dept or else I would have called them myself). She does and has the credit person go ahead and do the verification with Visa while she's on the phone and while I hold. It goes through and FINALLY the order is released for shipment. She apologizes about all the problems and doesn't really understand how it got so screwed up. After seeing the out of stock messages on the board, I ask about status and she checks and says it is still available to ship.

Shortly after getting off the phone, I get finally get the order confirmation email. Low and behold, it says it's backordered. I call again to ask about it. The rep says she's confused about the status. She puts me on hold and when she comes back, she confirms it is backordered with no stock ETA but that they did have some available yesterday.

A few things here. I understand that companies want to protect themselves from fraud. But there has to be a better way. Why bother having a direct sales division at all if it's this much hassle to process an order? Even if the credit folks had indeed called me on Monday, I still would have been dissuaded from buying direct again since no other retailer I've bought from does this. Secondly, if a person placing an order can just call back later and verify the information they gave earlier, what's the point of verifying at all? Apprently they separately do verification of billing address and phone info with the CC company, but obviously they have kinks in the system as the first couple of go rounds got screwed up This has to be one of the most convoluted ways of ordering I've ever come across. If not for the lack of alternative buying options, I would never have ordered from Nokia directly. I could have understood if the delays and order rejections had something to do with it not actually being relased, but that's not what happened here. It will almost certainly be my last order with them. I hope non of you run into any of this garbage.

Whoosh. That was a looooonnnnngggggg story.

Jeff