Restrictive Sales Practices on the Web?

Ed Almos asks: "I don't know about other Slashdot readers, who happen to live outside the US, but I'm in Hungary, and am finding it more and more difficult to purchase goods and services over the web. The sites are there, the money is in my account, but the sites won't sell me anything! Can someone come up with a logical reason for these policies? Last time I checked I was using the WORLD Wide Web, and there seems little point wasting bandwidth to post your website to the world when only those living in the USA can buy and/or use the product. Then again, is this yet another example of the Internet and the rest of the world becoming more and more centered on the continental USA? The final irony? I'm originally from Maine. These folk won't even sell to one of their own!"

"Here are a few examples:

IBM, Apple and Dell operate web stores that sell almost their entire range of kit, they only ship to the USA. Power Notebooks have the same policy but cite different reasons (see below). Some manufacturers have local country websites but these offer a restricted range compared to the main site.

Apple has their new iTunes system. As I am outside the USA they will not let me logon to the system.

Amazon.com are willing to sell me books but nothing else.

The reasons for this policy range from the (almost) reasonable to the downright silly. Amazon cite difficulties with warranty returns as their reason and while most of the rest won't tell me why they don't want my business Power Notebooks told me that recent anti-terrorist legislation stops them from exporting equipment. Quite why they cannot export a notebook originally manufactured in the Far East is beyond me.

Getting the kit to me in Hungary is no problem either. FedEx and UPS have local offices and if that fails there is always the Hungarian Postal Service. Shipping time from the USA can be as short as two working days, I know this because my company obtains spares from the USA for our products."

Comments

Hungary is a beautiful country

[ObviousGuy]

Get off the web and learn how to paint. The countryside is beckoning.

"Can't be bothered..."

[Speare]

It costs money and time and expertise to establish a world-wide shipping channel. You have to know a lot more about international trade law, and liabilities in cases of returns/exchanges/credits are much more complex.

Most small companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability, as the short-sighted shareholders (public or private) won't accept the large up-front cost in that kind of expansion.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[RALE007]

The original article cites:

...IBM, Apple and Dell operate web stores that sell almost their entire range of kit, they only ship to the USA....

IBM, Apple, and Dell are hardly small businesses, and I think the original question of "why don't they ship international?" is still valid. I also do not buy "(small) companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability..."

What capabilities are necessary to grow? Purchaser still pays shipping, and you create seperate national and international warranty/exchange programs. The national program is the standard warranty, international terms can be whatever you deem, eg:

"Warranty only good in the US."

"International purchasers are liable to shipping costs for returned/exchanged items..."

et cetera. It doesn't seem like much capability growth to me. Perhaps I'm missing something.

To answer the original question of "why won't they ship international" has more of a simple direct response. The poster of the original article was looking at the wrong places to buy. As stated in his original post, companies usually have a local (national, within the US) website, and an international one. If you ask the American division of Dell to sell you a computer, they will not (and should refer you to the correct division of the company that handles purchases for the location of the purchaser). Sadly many of those within a national division are unaware of their own corporations international offices.

For example, IBM (International Business Machines) allows you to select the country of your location on their webpage. To solve the authors ordering difficulties, he should visit IBM's Hungarian Website.

If he wishes to buy direct from Dell, he should see Dell's Hungarian Website.

Lastly, he said he couldn't buy Apple. I am not finding an Apple Hungarian website, but from Apple's main page I see they do have a european website, and also a site for neighboring Austria. I think if he inquired with Apple's european offices, as oppossed to inquiring the American, he could find how to have products shipped to him in Hungary.

This is not a troll, but I don't think the author of the original article has much merit to claim he cannot buy products internationally. I think he's a guy originally from Maine who doesn't speak Hungarian so he can't order of off the Hungarian website.

I think the companies listed in his example have uninformed or undertrained representatives who do not even know to refer a customer such as the original author to the Hungarian/European offices instead of simply telling him "we don't sell to anyone who isn't in the United States".

So, in closing, it's easy for companies to operate internationally, there isn't much of a "process growth" involved. Our original article poster doesn't really have a problem, he just doesn't know where to go to order his equipment. When he inquired at the wrong place to see if he could purchase, whomever he communicated with was unaware of where to direct an international customer and misinformed him that international customers are not desired.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[The Mayor]

I remember reading in a Business 2.0 or some other high-tech business magazine that transatlantic shipments of packaged goods *average* 20% loss rates. This is shipments of goods from the US to Europe. Not Africa. Not Asia. Not South America. Europe. The article sited a number of reasons, including fraud (it seems that credit card fraud is harder to catch with transatlantic shipments) to post office theft to simple lost packages.

Oh, and my experience with the German and UK posts are that the US is generally every bit as good if not better than European postal services. Of course, you must realize that the distance from El Paso (Texas) to Beaumont (still Texas...we're just in one state!!!) is farther than the distance from Edinburgh to Rome. In my experience, most of the European postal services are top notch when delivering intra-country. But I've had better luck with prompt and reliable delivery sending stuff within the than shipping from France to Scotland.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[dbrutus]

What he can't get is goods that have not been released for the respective country. For instance, Apple puts out a new version of their OS but they haven't got around to updating the Magyar language strings. Well, should they delay release? No, they just don't release the product to Hungary and release it later when they've finished localizing it. Buying goods in other markets and then importing it is called grey market purchasing and is perfectly legal, if frowned upon by the manufacturer. That's what this fellow wants to do. he doesn't want to wait for the new Hungarian language instructions on the new iPod to be ready, he wants his iPod now and screw the fact he'll have to read the directions in English.

There's a real need for an expat friendly cross shipping service that will allow you to have a virtual US presence, e-mail you your postal mail, and ship your stuff further on, once it has arrived at your US address. If you can have a credit card issued to you with a US billing address nobody gives a damn that the check is drawn on a Hungarian bank when you pay your bills.

I've informally done this kind of work for a Romanian firm who needed to buy a copy of some specific variant of Fortran but couldn't get anybody to take their money. No, you can't patent it as I claim prior art but feel free to open a formal business on this plan.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[SacredNaCl]

And FedEx/UPS/DHL do operate in most areas, even outside industrial world.

It is my understanding based on information from the mid 90's that DHL operates in those countries with a very large internal blacklist, and hired a company to go and do a physical address survey in areas well known for fraud. Something on the order of 90% of shipments to certain third world nations were fraud, and 50-60% in eastern bloc countries for non B2B shipments. Fraud for B2B was still high in parts of Africa.

I would not be surprised at all if FedEx and UPS and other international shipping companies have experienced similar problems.

You can't really blame a lot of businesses for not being willing to take the risk. If you are selling laptops and making $100 a piece on them, losing 6 out of 10 you ship will put you out of business in a hurry.

The only suggestion I have for you is to call the merchant and arrange for a B2B style delivery. Reluctant merchants are far more likely to ship to a business they can look up and verify exist than a private address.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[anonymous loser]

I also do not buy "(small) companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability..."

What capabilities are necessary to grow? Purchaser still pays shipping, and you create seperate national and international warranty/exchange programs. The national program is the standard warranty, international terms can be whatever you deem, eg:

"Warranty only good in the US."

"International purchasers are liable to shipping costs for returned/exchanged items..."

et cetera. It doesn't seem like much capability growth to me. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Speaking as the manager of an international sales channel, I can hopefully fill you in on the big picture.

• Here's a few items off the top of my head:
• Infrastructure. There's a lot of little things that you have to do to enable international sales. You need targeted sales and marketing materials. You have to know how much it costs to ship stuff to that country. You need access to people who speak the native language that can help you out with all the business and legal issues that crop up, etc.
• Payment. Suppose you ship off an order of widgets to another country, and the credit card turns out to be stolen, or the Purchase Order is reneged, or a myriad of other things that could go wrong with payment happens. You've basically just lost that money, with very little way to recover it. Thanks to the fact that it is an international payment, it might very well cost you much more to attempt to recover the money than the value of the sale. Of course there are steps you can take to mitigate this problem. I had an associate tell me that if I ever sell something to country XYZ, be sure that I have all the money in my bank and accounted for before I even ship anything. This works, but it's a bad solution for other reasons. As the RIAA has shown, there's nothing like treating your customers like criminals to win their loyalty.
• Warranties are not necessarily whatever you put on the box. There are laws that state minimum warranties for products, and those laws vary country-to-country and sometimes state-to-state.
• Like warranty claims, liability can be a big issue. If the product breaks and causes financial or other damages, the laws of that country take over and determine the liability of the seller. It is very difficult and expensive to sort out these legal issues and establish policies for every country in the world. If you think lawyers are already expensive, you should try hiring a specialist like those that handle international contract law. It is a major bank-buster just to do the proper groundwork and establish a beachhead in a new country.
• Customer support is a big issue. It is expensive and difficult to provide adequate customer support to the international community, especially when there are language issues involved. In this particular case the guy happens to be a native English speaker, but I can certainly see why a company would establish a general policy of not selling to some countries. Generally speaking, it's a major pain in the ass. I dunno about Dell, IBM, etc. but I want my company to provide the best customer support possible, and just the language barrier by itself is a detriment to providing a level of support I am comfortable with. Add to that issues with time zones covering reasonable business hours in the country you're selling to, shipping expenses for returns, etc. and customer support can quickly get out of control.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Captain Nitpick]

Of course, you must realize that the distance from El Paso (Texas) to Beaumont (still Texas...we're just in one state!!!) is farther than the distance from Edinburgh to Rome.

Texas is huge, but you're off by quite a bit. It's roughly 850 miles from Beaumont to El Paso (the I-10 milage sign in Orange, closer to the Louisiana border, reads 867, iirc). Edinburgh to Rome is something like 1200 miles (straight line).

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[ojQj]

Speaking as an American who lives in Germany, I can provide a few examples of unexpected problems in international business from my own experience:

Tolls at Customs: I recently shipped myself software that I had bought in the US a few years ago. When you ship things internationally you have to note the value. I was charged about 30% of the value that I notated in order to get my own possessions back from the post office. Companies also have to pay import fees and they vary by country. Often they also have to pay sales tax in the country in question. Unless you want to piss your customer off with unexpected expenses, you have to include this in the price you state up front.

Export laws -- The US prohibits the export of certain types of goods to certain countries. The laws are often complex and subject to interpretation. Some companies choose not to hire an expert to look at questions of this nature alone. These companies have to limit the countries in which they will sell. It may well be that the easiest way to deal with this is to only sell in the US.

Warranties -- in Germany electronic goods are required to be warrantied against failure for 3 years. If you read through one of those warranty books that is printed in several languages, and you are multi-lingual, you'll notice that the warranties have contents which vary by language. Some companies don't make their goods to last 3 years, and as such don't want to be subject to warranty law in Germany. These companies don't sell their goods in Germany. I imagine that a lot countries have highly varying warranty law. If I were a business person, I wouldn't be willing to go blind into that potential mine field. I would either choose not to go, or hire someone who knows the territory.

Varying demand curves -- People in different cultures have different average incomes and differing desires to buy a product. This leads to varying intersection points between the supply and demand curves. A company that wants to earn more money won't just choose an average from the global market -- they'll adjust their prices locally to reflect local demand. In order to do this though, they need to isolate the markets. This means that the web-sites need to become country specific. We can argue about morality, but it's not illegal to run a business this way, so many businesses do.

Oh and your argument that US salespersons/websites should direct international customers to the sales site set up for them runs face first into the problem the original poster stated -- that the local product offering may not include the product the customer wants. It also may be selling locally for a higher price than it does in the US.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Goth Biker Babe]

Sure it's not the distances but the number of transfers which are involved. Put a package on a Jumbo in Sydney and it will still be on that plane when it lands in London. The times when the package is likely to go missing are Sydney (it doesn't get on the plane) or London (it gets off but disappears in Heathrow somewhere).

The are 60 million people in the UK. That's an awful lot of homes. If you're sending packages from the suburbs of London to the suburbs of Glasgow at a minimum it will go from local post-office, to local sorting office, to regional sorting office, to airport, to plane, from plane, to airport, to regional sorting office, to recipient, say. That's many places where it could go missing. The major distance (London to Glasgow) isn't an issue here. That could be 400 miles, it could be 4000 miles.

There is an issue with the reliability of the packages arm of the post office, Parcel Farce. They aren't very good. But the private carriers are generally fine. I can have a friend from Arizona send me a harddrive and it turn up on my door step two days later.

But as others say in the end it's down to the effort the suppliers want to make. You could either use a better carrier, insure against potential fraud (Western Europe is not the third world and our crime is no worse than the US and in some areas a lot better), carry out better checks. Add a premium to the sales price to cover these.

We're a big market. Scandinavia, Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy is a hell of a lot of population (between 400 million and 0.5 billion people). It must be worth their while to sell to us. If they don't we'll look elsewhere.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Zardoz44]

May be because capitalist society is inherently ineffective in taking care of the customers?

Capitalist society is driven by customers. However, in this case, capitalism is restricted by international trade laws which make selling goods and services overseas difficult and often unprofitable. Consider this document:

The 25 percent truck tariff evolved out of an agricultural dispute with West Germany. To retaliate against unfair treatment of U.S. frozen chicken exports to West Germany, President Lyndon Johnson imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported trucks valued more than $1,000 by Presidential Proclamation 3564 in 1963. Prior to this proclamation, imported trucks were subject to a tariff rate of 8.5 percent.

You mess with my frozen chickens and I'll drop a tariff on your light trucks. Crap like this is what makes it difficult to sell/buy overseas products.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Elvisisdead]

FYI, the USPS has always been independent. Without going into too much detail, it operates as an independent government corporation, similar to the FDIC, Amtrak, and Fannie Mae. I'm personally a huge fan of the USPS, but they are far from profitable. Just check out this testimony from the GAO (and various other reports by the same organization). Alternatively, hit Google with "Postal Transformation" and see what it gives you. The only problem is that the USPS is constitutionally guaranteed. That's right. You have the constitutional right to send mail in the US.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[ponxx]

A lot of big companies keep their markets quite seperate. What do you think the whole region encoding on DVDs was about? They try to maximise their profits, which in some instances might mean different pricing levels or different release dates in different markets.

These companies don't only frown on grey market imports, they do everything in their power to stop them. Particularly bad are car manufaturers (ridiculous price differences for the same thing even inside Europe, very restrictive sales practices to "authorised dealers" etc) and clothing/shoes people (I seem to remember Reebok stopping supermarkets in Germany from re-importing from China, as it would "dilute their brand" or something).

Anyway, the big companies want globalisation, have factories where the work is cheapest etc. Lawmakers should make sure that individuals have the same capabilities, and for instance make things like "region encoding" illegal.

Ponxx

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[John Hasler]

> We're a big market.

No you aren't. You are a bunch of small and medium sizied markets, each with its own set of customs, tax, legal, shipping, and fraud headaches.

> It must be worth their while to sell to us.

It would be if your market was truly unified.

> If they don't we'll look elsewhere.

Of course you will. So what?

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[shotfeel]

Why is that?

Because by doing that you and the forwarder assume much of the legal and financial responsibility.

For example, if it was illegal to export some item from the US to your country, it is the you and the forwarder who are responsible, not Thinkgeek.

Fraud

[Detritus]

I don't know if it is a problem in Hungary, but some countries get blacklisted due to credit card fraud.

Re:Fraud

[rossz]

American Express pulled out of Hungary a few years ago due to credit card fraud. They only recently returned. I understand our own F.B.I. sent a team over to Hungary to help train the rendõrség (police).

Sounds like a market opportunity to me

[El]

If US companies are too silly to ship to your country, why not start your own e-commerce site? Lease a warehouse in the US, have them ship to that, and then fly it over daily and fulfill your own orders...

Re:Sounds like a market opportunity to me

[follower-fillet]

Someone's already doing it:

http://www.myus.com/

(I have not used them, just remembered seeing a company that does it, and a Google search revealed this one.)

tarrifs, trade restrictions, VAT, etc

[Vellmont]

I'd imagine that a lot of small companies don't want to deal with this sort of thing. Why a larger company wouldn't, I don't know.

BECOMING more US Centric?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

You do know that the US is where DARPAnet began, right? that little network that was the precursor of the internet?

Do you propose that companies that aren't prepared to undertake the expense and risk involved in doing business with every last country on the planet not be able to do business on the web?

I'm sorry but I don't see the basis for complaint in the original poster's musings. It costs MONEY to, for instance do business in Hungary, handle transactions and currancy conversions, and deal with fraud. If a particular market doesn't offer enough profit to justify the expense, that market simply isn't worth doing business with.

I'm a little suprised that Hungary is on the list of "not worth it", but perhaps that's not universal.

The web is planet wide. Not every company on the planet is obligated to do planet wide business to participate.

Re:BECOMING more US Centric?

[Endareth]

I'm sorry but I don't see the basis for complaint in the original poster's musings. It costs MONEY to, for instance do business in Hungary, handle transactions and currancy conversions, and deal with fraud. If a particular market doesn't offer enough profit to justify the expense, that market simply isn't worth doing business with.

Of all the online stores that ship worldwide, I'm yet to see one of them charging in different currencies depending on their ship-to location. Pretty much all business charge in the currency of their own location, be it Canada, UK, USA, or wherever. The buyer pays whatever it costs to convert the currency. Fraud can be an issue, and often is, but many countries are at least as easy to prosecute fraud in as the USA, and it's not that hard to build up a "safe list" of countries. Shipping is easy, many of the standard shipping methods in the USA will ship internationally, they just charge a different rate--again, this is paid for by the buyer.

The web is planet wide. Not every company on the planet is obligated to do planet wide business to participate.

Certainly, but it's not unreasonable for the business that specifically choose a .com domain for themselves to offer their business internationally. Otherwise they really should consider sticking to a .co.uk, .com.au, .com.us, or wherever they do restrict their business to.

Re:BECOMING more US Centric?

[ahfoo]

This is all quite off base.
The guy was wrong from the beginning. It's not becoming more US centric. It's quite the opposite.
I say that as an American that has lived overseas for fifteen years. The world was infinitely more US centric to me back in the eighties. In order to understand this you need to realize that the definition of being from any particular place has broken down enormously in the last few decades.
It's like saying that Japanese automakers are edging out detroit. Well, that's a bit ridiculous since many Japanese automakers are largely owned by both European and American interests and vice versa. To speak of anything being centered on any one physical region is a rapidly deteriorating notion that was far more defensible in previous decades.

Shipping and taxes.

[Christopher Thomas]

The reason, as far as I can figure out - shipping costs, and paying appropriate taxes.

Even between the US and Canada, anything being shipped across the border gets taxes and a brokerage fee tacked on, and extra postage. Handling all of that for a wide range of countries, automatically, would be a logistical nightmare.

A simpler approach would be to set up a branch office in the target country and sell locally.

Restrictive Sales Practices on Web - So true !!

[$exyNerdie]

So true !!

But wait, I can't buy Yopy 3700 Linux PDA in US.
(The Yopy 3700 is developed in South Korea and is currently available in France, Austria and the UK for a MSRP of $499 US.)

Here's some reasons

[flowerp]

Credit card clearinghouses charge more money to US companies for clearing international credit card transactions. Hence a lot of US retailers do not accept foreign credit cards for online orders.

Fraud is more likely to occur on international shipments where the receiver is harder to track down.

Foreign people's credit information/scores are not easily available to US companies (this applies to financing options).

Music businesses may not yet have acquired the rights to distribute the music outside of the US. Local monopolies hamper global distribution.

There are issues with international shipping and customs. Customs may confiscate or return shipments. Export restrictions may prevent exporting certain technologies and goods. ...extend this list at will...

Let me sum it up in one word...

[sting3r]

FRAUD.

Hungary is one of about ten countries worldwide that are responsible for a whopping 55% of credit card / bank / wire fraud. Serving the few legitimate customers in these ten countries often takes a back seat to preventing $3000 laptops from disappearing into the ether.

Sad but true. Even in the U.S., where our large cities are cesspools of scams and larcenies, the authorities have a better handle on the situation (mostly because the police forces here are rarely in cahoots with organized crime).

Re:Let me sum it up in one word...

[dwillden]

This issue has nothing to do with any particular countries. I can speak from personal experience on this.

In the last three years I've been deployed to the Balkans twice by the US Army. I go nowhere without my laptop. But good luck trying to get updated software or Accessories, As the original article mentioned Amazon will at least sell books and movies, but little else.

The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003. Nobody would ship it, and it the PX didn't stock it. I ended up ordering it to my home and having my family send it to me. The same issue came up when I decided I wanted an ergonomic keyboard. Unable to ship the Norton, I could kind of understand as there maybe some export restirctions for some reason, but a funky shaped keyboard? And I have to note that all this stuff was being sent to my APO address. All I should have had to do was find companies that used the US Postal Service as all APO's are treated as stateside mail addresses. No Luck and again the Post Exchange(PX) system's lousy tech selection didn't help me either. Supposedly anything I want the PX has it online, right. At least Amazon would send my books and most important my DVD's quickly. (Hint to anyone deployed or looking at getting deployed, when ordering to an APO select the cheapest shipping option, they automatically upgrade it to first class mail at no charge.)

Try to order something of an electronic or software nature to an overseas address. Most online retailers have their systems set up to serve only the US and maybe Canada. They aren't limiting to trouble countries like Hungary, they usually won't even give any shipping option or purchase option outside the US, not even to APO's which are legally considered stateside addresses.

Again as I said above, I can understand it if the merchants are forced to balk on some items with export restrictions such as encryption restrictions. However, instead they have made it a blanket blockage on items that don't fall into those categories.

Okay you say, but I've just mentioned difficulties with APO addresses using US mail, and what about other forms of shipping. So add the higher shipping charges as necessary. UPS, DHL FEDEX and other shippers do ship overseas. I will grant some difficulties due to customs tarrifs, but wonder how much a burden that really is considering how widespead the aformentioned delivery companies's operations are.

Determining the shipping charges may take some additional time, but thats easy to handle. Simply put into the transaction software a point where the purchaser may have to wait a brief time until the purchase and shipping charges can be confirmed and then emailed to the purchaser with a link back to the purchase to complete the transaction.

In conclusion I agree with the Original Article, in this day of international commerce and the World Wide Web why can't we get basic electronics software and computers and components shipped overseas?

Re:Let me sum it up in one word...

[bongobongo]

ok, i accept that reasoning for Hungary.

but what about Canada? i live in Vancouver and it seems like a majority of online retailers based in the US won't ship here! i mean... i live less than 3 hours away from Seattle (by car) but Seattle-based online retailers won't ship stuff to me. what a joke.

there must be something else.

Re:Let me sum it up in one word...

[aussersterne]

I've worked for some major e-commerce sites (unfortunately I can't name them), but they're top-10 outfits. On the inside of these businesses, there are huge mechanisms in place specifically to deal with credit card fraud. Romania was the number one when I was involved -- basically every transaction that could be connected in any way to Romania was assumed bad -- but Hungary was on the list as well.

The incredible volume of credit card and other kinds of fraud occurring in this handful of countries basically created a kind of sour taste in these businesses' mouths. Pretty much the only two trusted non-US sites were the UK and Canada.

Chargebacks

[mikeophile]

The chargeback levels from some countries are enormous. When a country accounts for only 2% of your business but makes up 20% of your chargeback, it doesn't take a business genius to decide that country's purchases aren't worth it.

Perhaps you should go to localized sites

[Heartz]

Dell does ship to Hungary. Just visit their local Hungarian site.

Your best bet is to look for a localized site so that it's not only easier for you to return the product but also save on postage.

Brokers?

[femto]

I also run into this problem from Australia.

Is anyone aware of any brokers who specialise in buying stuff from US web sites, shipping it to a US addess, then forwarding it to an international address?

Re:Brokers?

[Cecil]

As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this company seems to cater exactly to people like you. They're a bit pricy though, by the looks of it, unless you're buying a lot of stuff.

The real reason

[waikerie]

No one in the US can find Hungary on a map.

Re:The real reason

[dJCL]

The parent is modded funny, and the best part is that the comment could be true. How many out there can find Hungary on a map? Do you have much of an idea of where it is? I've gotten the impression in the past that many in the US do not have an impression of the rest of the world(Just watch "Talking to Americans" on CBC some time, if you get the jokes )

So... Do you know where Hungary is? Can you find it on a map? Without Google?

I had a general idea when I started reading the story, and when I thought of this comment I was able to place it exactly in my head, and could even tell you nearby countries...(no hints for you!)

Enjoy!

Re:The real reason

[Niadh]

Do you know where Indiana is? Can you find it on a map without googling? What is its capital? What about imports and exports? Crops? Climate? Terrain? Population?

No you say? Why is this relevant?

Indiana is bigger then Hungary. It's GSP(Gross State Product) is $190 billion compared to Hungary's $134.7 billion. And Indiana has 4 million less people. (just to name 3 reasons)

And it is just a State.

Why is it so important to you for Americans to know where every 2nd and 3rd world country is? I'm sure you couldn't name every country out there, much less point them all out.

*sources*
http://www.in.gov/doc/compare/
http: //www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/prin t/hu.html

Re:The real reason

[Valar]

*sigh* Hungary is NOT a 3rd world country. It is a first world country. That's right. There is no such thing as a 2nd world country anymore, btw, because there is no soviet union anymore, and the definition of 2nd world depended on the existance of a superpower to rival the US. And no, I can't name every country out there. One thing you must consider though, is that there are more countries in the world than states in the US. Can you name all of the states in the US? Without any help? Go for it. Even for Americans this is tough, apparently. Most get 45 or so and can't think of the rest (there are 50, if you need a hint).

Re:The real reason

[corbettw]

"Most get 45 or so and can't think of the rest (there are 50, if you need a hint)."

What?!? 50 states? I thought there were three: California, New York, and Flyover.

Since Hungary is more in the European region

[admbws]

It would probably be better to buy things from either European or Hungarian resellers. Instead of Amazon.com, use Amazon.co.uk. Instead of Dell.com, use Dell.hu IBM, again, use IBM.hu instead of IBM.com. Simple really.

Fraud and accountability

[G27 Radio]

I work for a webhosting company. We've had a couple instances where people have set up accounts via credit card, then we later were notified that the owners of the cards had no knowledge their cards were being used.

In each instance the cards and billing info were from overseas. None yet from within the US. I'm guessing that credit card fraud is a little more common in other coutries.

For us it's not a really big deal. We shut off the accounts and refund the money. However, if we were actually shipping a physical product I'm not sure we'd be as willing to deal with customers from overseas.

Credit card companies

[drgroove]

Credit card companies are one of the major stop gaps to allowing truly online, global commerce from happening.

No major credit card company will validate a credit card from one country to the next. Hence, if I live in Canada, and want to purchase a product from a company in the UK, Visa (or Mastercard, Discover, American Express, etc) won't do a check on my credit card for the company in the UK to ensure that I'm the cardholder, that my address & postal code match, etc.

If credit card companies would allow cross-border validation to occur, online commerce would see an enormous increase in activity. Unfortunately, fraudulent purchases would be one of those increases, hence why the credit card companies won't budge. If there is a solution to the fraud issue (.NET? Liberty Alliance?), then convincing the credit card co's/banks/financial institutions to allow cross-border validation would be much easier...

Channel conflict

[ChartBoy]

IBM, Apple, and Dell probably have a channel for selling their products in Hungary, with agreements not to compete with those distributors. The distributors may not have a web presence, but that would be the Hungarian distributors' problem, not the manufacturers'.

Can you say....

[djupedal]

EU taxes?

Hightened security on shipping?

Cost to verify overseas c'cards?

Cost of refused delivery?

Cost of RMAs?

Import duties?

English only packaging?

...need more, let me know. I've been around this tree over and over, for years now.

other possible reasons

[lingqi]

maybe also because of price differences? - I don't speak for hungary, but the below situation is my understanding of some tricky thing that goes on between danmark and germany:

danmark has 25% VAT, and germany 13% (VAT = sales tax); to equalize final prices, car manufactures price the cars so that the final price (after the VAT) is about the same in both countries.

a lot of germans used to go over to danmark, buy a car, go back to germany (get a refund on that 25% on the way out of danmark) and pay the VAT for germany. pocket a good chunck of change.

manufactures were not happy about it, so that changed in a zippy (lobbied some legislation, IIRC).

so, for example apple products are 30% more expensive in japan than the US. I can't imagine them being happy about me shipping a powerbook over here.

on the other hand, amazon japan seem to be all for shipping things to the US, though - any maybe to other countries like hungary too; so maybe give them a try.

Word Wide Web != Word Wide Shopping

[mjhans]

Why does it mean that just because a site is on the web it must provide all its services to the entire world? The web is worldwide, not the services of each specific site.

That's like complaining that the front page of the New York Times on the web isn't world-centric (hint: it's not even US-centric, it focuses on New York)

Personal insight...

[silverhalide]

Having been in a small mail order business for quite a while, I can tell you why US companies hate shipping internationally:

It's a pain in the ass.

An international package takes at least 3 times the paperwork to fulfill. There's a 4-part customs form, customs declarations, and not to mention ungodly postage. It also screws up shipping calculations. In the US, you can safely charge a flat rate fee for shipping and that's that. You can even run actual shipping rates through the current USPS And FedEx rate tables. Now, bump it up to international shipping. You HAVE To insure everything that goes international, since the package is handed off between organizations many times if you use the US Post Office. UPS and FedEx are ungodly expensive internationally and hardly pay to use. Not to mention that many international customers don't have English as their first language making correspondance that much more difficult.

Now what about your return policy? I sure as hell don't want to be sending a call tag for $100 to get a computer shipped back to me because they didn't like it and it's broken. It's just impossible to provide the same level of customer service to someone not in the same country as you.

So if you were wondering, that's why US Companies hate shipping abroad. Canada and Mexico are a little easier since they have more relaxed borders, but still a pain in the butt.

Fraud & Chargebacks Kill

[esconsult1]

As a merchant, i've stopped selling my software product to certain Eastern European countries because of the fraud problem.

At one point the level of chargebacks almost drove me out of business. Imaging you selling so many copies and then a month or so later almost all of them get charged back!!

It leaves a pretty bad taste in the mouth.

Now, my friends and family in Jamaica will ask me to purchase stuff for them and ship it. I am glad to do it. The submitter better find some friends here that can do it for her/him.

Until the day comes around when the laws and financial instutions play catch up in those countries, we will always be reluctant to do business overseas.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

[PingXao]

Department of Homeland Security Chief Patriot Tom Ridge just announced a new push aimed at thwarting economic aid to you-know-who. This glorious new program will result in all financial transactions being monitored and recorded and archived forever. In this way credit card fraud will be stopped. In fact, it's going to be called the War On Credit Card Fraud And Money Laundering. Once appropriate policies are in place in the U.S., other nations of the world will also adopt the same standards. Or else. Recent action by the OECD and the FATF in blacklisting offshore tax havens was just the opening salvo in the War.

So, be Happy! Soon, thanks to the efforts of the patriots at the Department of Homeland Security, the entire WORLD-Wide-Web will be safe for you to reliably conduct credit card transactions. More importantly, it will be safe for merchants to collect their payments and banks to earn their interest. (You didn't really think anyone cared about you, did you?)

Re:Can't buy G4 and G5 based Macs....

[Baumi]

It used to be like that when the G4 came out, but the policy has long since been revised.

To get this back on topic: AFAIK, all of Apple's online stores (it has them for various countries) only sell to people living in the respective countries, and I'm afraid the feeling in Cupertino is that the Mac market share in Hungary is too small to warrant a localized online store with all the additional costs. (Call center, etc.)
And the ITMS is, as you probably know, all tangled up in complicated European licensing issues - there's no European equivalent for the RIAA and even within single countries, the labels can't seem to agree on a common policy.

Will Amazon.com sell you DVDs? They should - there isn't that much of a warranty issue with them and I can get them overe here in Germany without any problem.

(BTW, if you're in the market for US-DVDs and Amazon won't sell them to you, try play.com or dvdboxoffice.com )

As for the earlier post that mentioned Hungary's countryside: I sure hope it's beautiful; I'll be visting Budapest a month from now. :-)

Welcome to the real world

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not there actually are differences between the differnt countries in the world. Companies that don't sell to a foreign market usually do so because they have either found it to be more costly than profitable or they haven't found a reason to expand into that market. Comapnies are usually trying to make money and if it costs more to setup your company to do business in some foreign company then more than likely you aren't going to. Its not as simple as just telling UPS to ship to some country. There are lots of hurdles to doing business in a foreign country. Logistically, financially, and legally. And if anything the amount of small business transactions has improved tremendously. 10 years ago the average consumer wouldn't have bought a damn thing from some other country, even with mail order. The fact that we dont have universal commerce between all countries shouldn't surprise anyone.

Hello McFly?

[jeffkjo1]

A lot of the response posts are centering on reasons as to why companies would not ship to other countries at all. However, this person has stated that many companies have localized (country-centric) sites, however, these sites only have a partial catalog when compared to the US version of the website. Why is that? What is stopping, say, Dell from selling Model A, B, and C in Hungary rather than just Model A and C.

Along the same lines.... why is it that Amazon will ship this person books, but nothing else? I can see region coded DVD's, but not CD's, or consumer electronics?

In this day and age, if a country is willing to ship some products overseas, there really isn't a reason why they can't ship all of them. They've already got the infastructure in place, yet they aren't fully using it.

Re:The reason is

[Not The Real Me]

Fraud is the answer. Since the source to compute the checksums for credit card numbers of openly available, script kiddies in foreign countries run their little scripts in an attempt to get free services or products from vendors.

This is why various merchant banks now require those of us accepting credit cards to either take the 3 digit cvs number, a zip code or city name as part of the merchant verification process. Therefore, it's up to the merchant to decide whether to accept credit cards from outside of the U.S. Many online merchants will simply pass on non-U.S. cards because getting too many chargebacks can get your merchant fees to skyrocket or get your merchant account cancelled altogether.

I can find it

[lpret]

But I think you've hit on something that is much deeper. Many times Americans will say "So what? Who cares about country X?" (See reply at same level) but as an American who has lived overseas most of my life, I have to say that it has helped a lot. It helps you understand where everyone else is coming from, especially in regards to their view of the US. It's similar to finding out who your neighbours are down the street. It may seem trivial, but it will help you understand your neighbourhood better and also understand what they think of you (and if you're a different race, what they think in general). Knowledge is always a good thing, and once we start to understand where people are coming from, we are better equipped to communicate and create solutions instead of blunders.
/soapbox

Re:The reason is

[mcrbids]

Since the source to compute the checksums for credit card numbers of openly available, script kiddies in foreign countries run their little scripts in an attempt to get free services or products from vendors.

No, that's not it. When you run a credit card thru various payment gateways, such as Verisign's Payflow or CardServices LinkPoint, the accounts are being verified online, in real time.

Meaning, that if I ran my otherwise valid credit card over limit 20 minutes ago, the transaction won't go through right now.

All the script kiddie false numbers in the world would have little or no effect on something like this.

How Dell and Compaq screw laptop purchasers

[MichaelCrawford]

Dell forbids U.S. purchasers to export Dell products from the U.S. The customer has to agree not to transport a Dell product outside the U.S., or else Dell will not sell you a unit. That means you're not allowed to take your Dell laptop on a business trip with you to a foreign country.

While air travelers can bring SARS with them halfway around the globe in hours, they can't bring their Dell laptop. Not legally anyway - Dell customers have a contractual obligation not to do so.

I don't know if that's still the case, but it was when I decided against purchasing a Dell so I could work during a long trip to Canada. I lived in California at the time.

Compaq, on the other hand, will not service a U.S. purchased unit outside the U.S. I was very happy doing my development on my Compaq Presario 1800T while living in Newfoundland the year of my wedding, but the unit failed and I had to send it back for service.

Good thing I had a recent backup.

First, Compaq Canada wouldn't service it because, although Compaq sells Presarios in Canada, they didn't sell that model. They connected me to the U.S. support center.

The U.S. support center wouldn't accept shipment from Canada, not even if I paid the shipping. There was no question of them expediting me a shipping container and getting it picked up after I packed my laptop. They simply said it had to be shipped from within the U.S.

Newfoundland is a long way from anywhere in the U.S. While it is geographically considered part of North America, it is actually an island separated from the mainland by a seven-hour ferry ride. Air travel to the U.S. from Newfoundland is quite expensive.

What I did was ask my client very nicely to FedEx me a check, paying me in advance for work I hadn't done yet, then I bought a brand-new Pentium III box from a screwdriver shop in St. John's. I restored my backup onto it and continued work until my next trip to the U.S., several months later.

I finally brought my dead Compaq to my parents' when I visited them for thanksgiving, in the U.S. Only then would Compaq agree to repair my laptop. But I had to fly back to Canada before Compaq returned it. They wouldn't return it to Canada either - they sent it to my parents' house. Then I had to ask my mom to FedEx me the laptop. FedExing a laptop is expensive.

The icing on the cake was that although Compaq had agreed to do a warranty repair, they said I voided my warranty by installing Windows NT, BeOS and Linux on it - the Presario came with Win98. They charged me $400 for a new motherboard.

They did so just as the dot-com crash started to affect my consulting business. It took several months for me to raise the money for the repair, during which my dead laptop was stored in Compaq's repair facility. They telephoned me periodically to ask about the money, and each time I said I was working on it.

Then, when I finally sent them their damn check, they asked for my authorization to "rebrick" my laptop. They wanted to erase my hard drive and put a factory-fresh Win98 installation on it. I had lots of files (not my development work) that weren't backed up. I didn't give them permission, but was very anxious until I got the laptop shipped by my mom, with my files, Windows NT, Linux and BeOS still intact.

By the time I was able to pay for the repair, I'd moved back to the U.S., to Maine. But they wouldn't ship to anywhere but the address the laptop came from. So my mom had to FedEx the laptop from Washington to Maine.

I will never, ever purchase a Compaq product again.

Re:The reason is

[sebmol]

So you accept the shipment and refute the charge afterwards on your credit card. It's almost impossible for any company to recover those damages. If you were a US customer, there's the civil court system to get them their due or the product back. If you have to deal with foreign jurisdictions, it becomes much more difficult.

I spoke with Dell regarding this

[egg troll]

A Dell representative explained to me why they don't ship to Hungary. They're answer: "My hovercraft is full of eels."

Hope this helps!

It�s not any better in Europe

[z_gringo]

I have the same problem in Europe. Nearly all of website with this problem are U.S. based websites. It seems like most U.S. companies forget that there exists a civilized world beyond its borders.

Try using Western Unions website to send money from France to Holland for example. Cant do it. You cant even call them and use the phone service. Its all for U.S. customers only.

There are loads and loads and loads of examples. Even more often its for stupid reasons, like it requires a phone number, and when you enter your phone number it comes back with "Oops youve entered too many digits for your phone number. Please enter your full 10 digit phone number with area code first" The same problem exists with postal codes.

European websites dont have this problem. Its just the American ones. Its quite frustrating, as I am also American, and would often like to order stuff from there. I usually just bring an empty suitcase when I go just so I can bring back what I cant buy over the web.

Apple is more limited in sales

[MickLinux]

Quite simply, Apple has less marketing; they tend to go for the larger markets (such as Poland, Austria, and Norway), and leave alone the smaller countries in between (such as Lithuania and Hungary). If you want an Apple in Lithuania, you can (1) go to the one store in Vilnius, place an order, and wait two weeks, or (2) Go to Warsaw on a bus, get your computer same day, and return.

Clearly, the Vilnius operator just consolidates #2 for those who don't want to go to Warsaw.

Aside from that, there are still the issues of international law, taxes, tariffs, and dealing with criminality. Quite simply, if you send something valuable through Lithuanian post, it has an excellent chance of disappearing, computer equipment especially. Apparantly international studies point one finger (bribes) at the Customs department, but local people say no, it's the post workers themselves. I myself am kindof divided on the issue: I don't really know where the stuff disappears, just that it definitely does. I also know that I had tons of trouble even getting stuff through UPS, and UPS did not even inform me that it was held up! I had to start calling around, asking pointed questions before I finally found the item, convinced them that there was no legal way to apply a tariff, and they then sent it on. Note that they did not even send a note asking the intended recipient for the product. It seems they were just going to delay it until a time limit ran out, and take it. And UPS did not seem to have any ability to help, except to tell me where in their system the package had disappeared.

But that being the case, there's not a lot of point in paying a 500% insurance rate on shipping. Maybe it's the same in Hungary.

Re:your point?

[MillionthMonkey]

Yeah but that isn't relevant. His point went straight over your head.

Just because I am visible to you over a network doesn't mean I am obligated to do business with you. The nationality independence of the web means Turkish people can buy things off Turkish sites, Japanese people can do business on Japanese sites, etc. and it works well for everybody. It doesn't imply that everyone doing business on the Internet is responsible for servicing customers from anywhere in the rest of the world.

People might have a whole bunch of reasons for limiting service to locations closer to themselves. There could be all sorts of paperwork and infrastructure that might not be properly set up to handle the transaction, or the associated overhead may overwhelm the profits from an extended market.

I don't understand where people come up with some of these strange beliefs about the Internet that they seem to have. How is it in principle any different from the global telephone network? For some reason, nobody has any common sense regarding the web, but phones don't seem to confuse people.

If I have a pizzeria in New York City and I install a phone, and you call me from Los Angeles trying to order a pepperoni pizza, I'm going to hang up on you. Having a phone number that is accessible to you doesn't mean I owe you my business. Even though you can dial my number and easily get in touch with me, there might be other problems, like the difficulty in getting a physical object like a pizza to you. The ease of the phone call hardly enters into it. "Why aren't you calling pizzerias in Los Angeles?" I'd ask, before hanging up. And that would be a reasonable response. How is having a web site any different? It isn't.

Re:The reason is

[will_die]

Fraud is a small part, and even with cash theses companies will not sell to you.
The main reason comes because of taxes, warrenties,customs,shipping and other legal problems.
It costs alot of money to make sure that the company complies with all of theses and until a the time a company sees they can profit they are not going to spend the time and money to sell in theses countries.
Until then ship the product to somone you know in the US and then have them ship it to you. That way the person shipping to you has to deal with customs and all that mess.

Showtime and other media channels...

[BrookHarty]

I found out last weekend that some media companies are actualy blocking domains outside the US. A friend in Japan tried to view sho.com (showtime) and they blocked him, saying they dont allow showtime outside the US, so there is no reason for people outside the US to view it.

The stupidity of companies doesnt even phase me anymore...

insurance

[smoking2000]

I visited Hungary just a few weeks ago, we wanted to rent a car to get there, but they wouldn't rent it to us because they cannot get the insurance for the car in Eastern European countries.

So we bought a car, the travel insurance to Hungarije was 15% or so higher then if we would have gone to Spain or some other western european country.

The economy is low so companies do everything to save money/not pay money. Terrorism is the mainstream accepted excuse. And since Hungary was under Socialist/Communist (which one was it agian?) reign till 1991 or so, places countries as such in the High Risk Countries category.

I hope things like these will resolve when Hungary joins the European Union. Not that I really want that, cause wealthy west-europeans will move to Hungary and destroy the beautifull countryside to build office buildings and such, and Hungarians will probably move to the west so you culture will be lost aswell... But thats a different discussion..

Re:The reason is

[Junior J. Junior III]

Those other guys who ship straight from the U.S to the U.K must be getting suckered all the time! Oh wait, CC fraud is about the same in the U.K as it is in the U.S.

The rate of fraud might be about the same, but have you tried looking at the legal burden of arresting someone overseas in a foreign sovereign nation vs. arresting someone a few states away? We might have extradition treaties with the UK, but to invoke it for a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars worth of fraud, every time such a crime is committed, would completely overrun law enforcement offices, making it impossible for them to deal with more serious matters.

Experience from a Mom & Pop Dotcom

[unfortunateson]

My wife runs an internet children's book shop (I won't plug it here), and while there are no countries we have 'banned' there are several areas we flag as high risk: Eastern Europe, especially Rumania, and Southeast Asia, especially Singapore and Indonesia.

An order from there, especially multiple copies of items, books oriented toward teens such as comic book collections, etc., will raise a red flag, especially if a US credit card is used.

There's a issue with the credit card processors: They charge more for handling ex-US shipments, because of a higher risk, but if you put a foreign address in they make no attempt to verify the address. But what do they care? They don't accept any risk, except for the customer payment of the card. Everything else is risk to the merchant.

So our typical response is to request a photocopy of both sides of the credit card e-mailed or faxed to us. Often, the customer never replies in cases where we suspect fraud. We've only had one customer refuse to fax us the card (hey, we already had her number, what's the big deal), and she ordered it to her home in the US and shipped it overseas herself.

Politics and Greed

[Creep73]

again, is this yet another example of the Internet and the rest of the world becoming more and more centered on the continental USA?

The world wide web started in the US as a government program so it is difficult to make the claim that it is "becoming more and more centered on the USA".

These policies are an individual companies decision and they have the right to make such policies especially in the face of internet taxation.

I wish that the internet was as free as it once was however politics and greedy governments are working to destroy it all. It is only going to get worse.

Re:The reason is

[Elbow Macaroni]

The reason is because you have a ton of countries all with unique shipping requirements and laws and blah blah...but the USA has good customers and it is all uniform. You can us the US Postal service, or UPS and you know it will be easy. For example if I have a customer doing a website and they inquire about shipping internationally, I have to tell them....well how much are you going to charge? They don't know because each country is different, whereas the USA is the USA and they know what to charge. I had a customer who did international shipping and got burned on a sale to New Zealand - her shipping to N.Z. made it not worth even selling. And yes there is a lot of fraud in Moldavia and places like that. It's too bad the crooks are ruining the repuation of their whole country.

Get someone in the states to ship it

[siskbc]

That's what this fellow wants to do. he doesn't want to wait for the new Hungarian language instructions on the new iPod to be ready, he wants his iPod now and screw the fact he'll have to read the directions in English.

Considering he's an American expat, I expect he prolly wants his crap in English anyway. I suspect this is the deal - he wants AMERICAN stuff while living in Hungary. Sorry, tho, that's just not how things work sometimes. The poster acts like this is some big US conspiracy to 0wnz0r the WWW, but it's generally a logistics thing - the few sales companies would get from Hungary isn't worth dealing with Hungary.

Considering the US has anachronistic laws dealing with export control of encryption and such, as well as other problems, it isn't worth the trouble of having the main sales unit deal with each country. For big companies like IBM, they have a unit for each country that are (hopefully) experts in local issues. So really, the only people with problems here are US expats who want stuff in English instead of the local language. In other words, him.

My advice to the guy would be to have some family in the states to order it for him and ship it. But complaining isn't going to help, and making it into some US vs. the world thing is silly.

Here is your solution, Pal

[Psychic Burrito]

Sigh... nobody posted this, as far as I'm aware:

A comparison matrix of the 6 major Mail Forwarding Services.

They all work the same way: They give you an US address, and everything shipped to this address is forwarded to your real address anywhere in the world.

Have fun!

Re:The reason is

[letxa2000]

False numbers or valid numbers that are just disputed later. If I accept an order from outside the U.S. and that person disputes the charges (even if they were valid), I'm pretty much stuck. It's not like I'm going to try to sue them in their country--that's going to be a money-losing proposition.

What I do is if the order is from outside the U.S. *OR* from inside the U.S. but uses a free-email account as a contact, or there is any question about the validity of the order, an email is sent to the customer asking them to fax a copy of the image of both sides of their credit card along with their signature and a note of the amount to charge. If it is charged back that gives me some documentation to dispute the chargeback with Visa/MC.

Of course, American Express is an entirely different set of nonsense. If you do more than 50% of your business on the Internet AMEX puts you on a "Full Recourse" plan which basically means any chargeback against you CANNOT be disputed, even if you have the above documentation. It's basically a cop-out on the part of AMEX in its duty to do a good-faith investigation into a chargeback. Basically, if the customer disputes the charge you're screwed. For that reason, our company will not accept AMEX orders over $50--which kind of defeats the purpose of accepting American Express. But I happily tell my customers to just use Visa or Mastercard instead. Seems AMEX is shooting itself in the foot.

Re:The reason is

[LordKane]

All to true. I work for an online software company, and our biggest issue is chargebacks. We have EULA's, we have phone verification on ALL orders, but the only thing we don't have is a signature as we found most people will go elsewhere to avoid the hassle of faxing in a signed order if they can do it all online at another website. We also find this is not exactly effective either, which I will explain later.

This results in some amount of trouble. If the person simply feels like it, they can deny the charge. If they decide tech support did not kiss their @$$ enough, they can chargeback. If they don't want to pay for it but want to keep the software, they can deny the charge. There is no real penalty for perjury on a chargeback form because in most cases it's a matter of "he said, she said". Proof is nearly impossible in cases where the person is complaining about the quality of service. It's software. People devise bugs out of their own ignorance, and never have a clue as to what they are buying. The merchant bank is just as dumb too, and will believe almost anything the customer says because it pertains to that nebulous field of "compu-tators." Hyuk.

While in some cases they may not be able to say "It wasn't me", which is the most common by the way, they can simply say "The merchant did not deliver as promised." No matter what EULA or signature we provide in response to the merchant bank, they have told us they will always side with the consumer in these cases. Unless your a very large company who has already worked out an airtight agreement with the bank, your screwed. We have been told this 3 times when asked why we do not respond to most chargebacks. Our response is usually "We were told it does not matter because you always side with the customer. Besides, you make money off chargebacks, so you don't care who the money goes to. Should we really bother?" They say "Well, your right. Ok, nevermind." *click* That last item is a quote from the last time we were contacted. If it's near impossible to handle chargebacks in this country, why accept purchases from even higher risk locations? Going after someone in this country (US) for payment would cost more than the software in legal fees. If it's even possible in the target country, you can triple the legal costs.

In my business, we wouldn't accept a purchase from the original poster. We will sell to some other countries, but not many. Netherlands, UK, Spain, Russia, Croatia, Georgia, NIGERIA, most of Europe, Africa, and Asia, actually, are all places where we simply delete the purchase. In our 7 years of business, not 1 single good purchase has resulted from those countries. Not one. All have charged back as being fake.

Until merchants can be better secured against fraud and weak chargeback claims from @$$hole customers, then I doubt you will be seeing US companies offering much international service. I know it's a two edges sword, as I have seen it needed to chargeback myself a few times when companies screwed me. As much as I would hate to see my power to do so diminished, I do realize that many small merchants are getting porked by the current setup. So, the system can be left as is for now, but definitely do not expect service from the US as long as it does.

Not just in Hungary

[DarkFyre]

There have been some useful answers as to why you can't get stuff shipped to Hungary: credit card fraud, excessive credit card handling fees, possible need for export/import documents...

Fine, but I live in Canada. None of these apply. Our credit cards have very similar fraud rates, and there are no extra fees for merchants charging a Canadian card. Heck, I can even get a US Dollar card drawn from Citibank if ya like.

Even those merchants who don't flatly refuse to sell to me make it prohibitively expensive by making their lowest tier international service "DHL 1-hour delivery - $529.99." Thanks guys, but you can just throw that in a box and send it parcel post. I'll pay the duty when the mail carrier comes to my house. I've had this argument with ThinkGeek a few times, and they cannot even comprehend the basic concept of mailing something to a non-US address.

For me, at least, this is maddeningly frustrating. It should be entirely transparent to the merchant to send stuff to me in Canada. The credit card gets charged in USD, and it bills me with the current rate. Merchants don't need to fill out any forms; Canada Post (or UPS, or FedEx) does that for me when I get the package. Same as above with duty and taxes.

Considering that this process is transparent to the merchant, those who say "Only ship to USA" or those who only offer expensive shipping to Canada are making a very clear statement about their priorities. I don't know what that statement is, considering that I'm trying very hard to give them my money, but there's a statement in there for sure.

It all has to do with credit cards.

[taustin]

50% of all credit card fraud is for consumer electronics. Online fraud is the fastest growing form of credit card fraud. Shipping from the US to non-US addresses is more difficult to track, making it more difficult to collect enough information to prosecute. And eastern Europe is wher the largest chunk of online credit card fraud is coming from.

Unfortunately, that means you're hosed.

BTW, it's not the web sites that are your problem, it's the banks that issue the credit cards. They are increasingly willing to refuse transactions on the slightest hint of anything suspicious, using arcane and complicated rules. The merchants can't even find out why a particular transaction was refused, but they don't want to tell that to you, so you get whatever reasonable sounding excuse they can think of.

Re:The reason is

[rhombic]

I totally agree that AMEX's policy is very vendor un-friendly-- problem is, the internet's a big place, and when online you're usually buying a commodity that can be bought elsewhere. And from a customer's standpoint, I'm not as much worried about other customers defrauding the supplier (though I probably should be, to keep costs down). I'm far more worried about suppliers/whomever defrauding me, selling my info, or "losing" it. So if a merchant won't take my 1-time AMEX number (generated by the handy-dandy smartcard reader on my desk, and fraud-proof since it's only good for one transaction), I'll try to find another merchant who will. My real number doesn't end up in anybody's database, to be snarfed at random when they forget to secure their machines.

I've never had to deal with an ID-theft or fraud (knocks on wood). My GF has, and it was absolute hell. She now gets a phone contact any time her credit gets run, on the assumption it's a fraud. From my point of view, preventing this makes going to a little extra bit of trouble, finding alternate vendors, whatever, very much worth the small amount of extra time. Just my $0.02