VIB Rouge Sale Unsuccessful Authorization

[mandaaaa]

I have made two orders during the VIB Rouge sale, and both have been cancelled. When I made the first order, I received an email stating that Sephora was 'unable to confirm your payment information' which shouldn't have been an issue because I've used the same card for online Sephora orders dozens of times. I then tried to reorder the same items but paid using PayPal, but it was cancelled again, this time without any email notification. I've seen so many other posts of VIB Rouge members having high value orders cancelled and am wondering if Sephora's system is just automatically cancelling orders or if there is a proper explanation. Now the sale is ending and the items I wanted are out of stock anyway, so I'm certainly not going to buy so many items at full price, but I want to know what 'unable to confirm your payment information' was actually referring to.

[RichardBT]

Hello @mandaaaa,

So sorry to see this. If you are still having issues with this, please send me a PM and I'd be happy to look into this further.

Best,

Richard

[Corkie41]

Same for me.  Two orders cancelled - without any notice.  I called after the first one.  At least the customer service person had the decency to say, she did not know why this was done.  I place an almost identical order, it was pending until today.  I checked earlier today, still pending, I checked again about 30 minutes ago.  Cancelled "Unsuccessful Authorization."

Frustrating.  And just as everyone is saying, now the sale is over, and most of the items I wanted are out of stock.  I really think that they are cancelling orders because they don't have enough inventory to fulfill the orders.  Easier to say that there was an error trying to process the credit card (hey, who doesn't already hate banks, so let's blame them) then to admit that there inventory system is terrible and that they sold more then they had. 

[SianBT]

Hi @Corkie41, 

Sorry to hear about this experience! I'm going to take a look at the order and will send you a PM shortly. 

Bisous, 

Sian

[Marijay]

they didn't cancel my orders, but they did place the charge, then reverse it, then charge it again... so Sephora actually flagged themselves as suspicious with my bank. I got the dreaded "fraud text" and had to log in to see wth. they sent the order, but there is no explanation as to why they did a payment reversal. the amounts were identical. they've done this twice now.

[SianBT]

Hi @Marijay,

Sorry to hear about this! It sounds like the initial pending authorization fell off, and then you were officially charged for your items once they shipped. 

If you're having trouble with this authorization, please send me your order number via PM so I can look into it 🙂

Thanks, 

Sian

[Marijay]

The orders were recieved just fine and the amounts were correct.  

It was just a pain because of the fraud monitoring.  Thank you for explaining what happened.

[DeeDeeYY]

same thing happened to me! no email... and now the products I want are all out of stock!!!!

[SianBT]

Hi @DeeDeeYY, 

Sorry to hear about this! Taking a look and I will send you a PM shortly 🙂

Bisous, 

Sian

[amandalidia]

Girl trust me when I say you will NEVER get an answer to that question. They cancelled two of my orders saying "unsuccessful authorization" and I never got an e-mail. The only reason I realized my orders were cancelled is because I saw my points drop back down. I called and they kept giving me different excuses. The first excuse was that back in September, the bank told them that a purchase that I had made was unauthorized. My credit card was frauded in September, HOWEVER that Sephora purchase was not flagged and it did show up on my statement and I paid for it. But CS insisted that I call the bank and let them know that all Sephora purchases are authorized. I called the bank and they let me know that it was actually Sephora reversing the charges and that they had never flagged any purchases from Sephora.

I call Sephora again and this time their excuse was that my shipping address was to my office and that they can't ship to office buildings. Even though that is where I ship all my orders.

In conclusion, they're a bunch of liars and have no real explanation for orders being cancelled. I placed a THIRD order and I'm just waiting for it to be cancelled at this point. And I'm SURE it will be. I'm also pretty sure it'll happen once the sale is over. Just to really screw me over you know?

[mandaaaa]

That's really shabby treatment, especially for customers who are apart of a loyalty program involving so much money. I've been VIB Rouge for years and I have had orders cancelled with more frequency lately, which is why I haven't bothered purchasing anything from here for a year and waited specifically for the Rouge event. No luck there! I tried 3 different during the Rouge dates and all 3 were cancelled.

My guess is that Sephora has been cancelling orders because of a supply issue - I've never seen so many items run out so quickly during a Rouge event, and remain 'Out of Stock' for the entirety of the event. It would explain the fake excuses (or lack thereof) for why the orders were cancelled - payment issue, office address, etc.

As far as I'm concerned I'm not going to try and place anymore orders with Sephora. I can't afford to have massive pending transactions on my card for over a week, only to have the orders cancelled. There's really no value in VIB/Rouge membership aside from the 15-20% sales, which are utterly pointless when they don't anticipate the volume of shoppers and don't have enough stock. And when they do, there's a one in three chance your order will get cancelled because their system goes into overdrive and arbitrarily cancels orders during these peak dates.

What's the point of attaining VIB Rouge status when your orders get cancelled like you're some bum using a stolen credit card? There are plenty of other retailers stocking the same items, easier transactions, better rewards programs and better customer service. I'm just going to let all my points and Rouge status lapse, because it's not like I can get much use out of it when I can't even place an order! It's been real xx