Billing Practices

[bdeutsch]

Have a quick question regarding billing practices of various cobra manufacturers.

Last week I ordered an item from a well known manufacturer. The item is made out of fiberglass. On the day the item was ordered, the full amount of the part was debited from my credit card. Based on many experiences with other online transactions, I assumed that this meant my part was ready and on its way to me.

After hearing nothing for a while, I pinged the company earlier this week and found out that the part is not in stock and that more are going to be made in a few weeks. I guess I am a bit concerned that there was nothing on the web site to tell me that my account would be billed regardless of whether the part was available for shipment and that I would not have known this had I not followed-up.

Is this common practice in the SPCN manufacturing arena? While I am not suggesting anything is wrong, I am finding this business practice a bit odd based on working with other online vendors...plus in the back of my mind, I seem to recall some credit card use laws that are supposed to prevent this from happening.

I could be making something out of nothing here and as always, look for the opinions of this Forum with more experience than me in this topic.

Thanks,

Bob