Before posting a help
request, please (please)
check for answers below:

================================

1. Where’s my tracking number?

The carrier, not us, sends a tracking number to the email address you used when ordering. Please check your junk, spam or deleted folders.

2. My order is late / missing:

When we trace a “missing” shipment we find, in 99+ cases out of 100, that it was delivered and signed for days before but a family member or co-worker forgot to mention it. Remember, if you chose regular shipping, your order may take 72 hours to print. If it is ready for shipment on a weekend it may not go out until Monday. It may then take 4-7 additional BUSINESS days to reach you. Or it may really be missing! (see below). Please do NOT inquire about so-called “missing” orders until the allotted time period for their arrival has elapsed (up to ten (10) BUSINESS DAYS for regular shipping, and up to five (5) BUSINESS DAYS for “RUSH”). Generally your order will arrive far sooner, but it cannot be considered “officially missing” until these times have elapsed.

3. You made a mistake on my order!

We’re far angrier at ourselves when we make a mistake than you could ever be. Just notify us as politely as possible and we’ll take care of it immediately, and we’ll thrash, beat, chastise (and possibly fire) the person responsible. But ranting, raving, cursing, threatening and insulting us will NOT help your cause, just as it will not help any cause in any other life-endeavor.

4. When I track my order the carrier’s website provides info that doesn’t make any sense.

For instance, USPS sometimes reports that they haven’t even received your package for shipping for several days after you signed for its delivery! Please do NOT inquire about so-called “missing” orders until the allotted time period for their arrival has elapsed (up to ten (10) BUSINESS DAYS for regular shipping, and up to five (5) BUSINESS DAYS for “RUSH”). Generally your order will arrive far sooner, but it cannot be considered “officially missing” until these times have elapsed.

5. Do you print your newspapers on real newsprint?

Yes, of course (amazingly some of our copycat competitors do not).

6. Do your newspapers have print and ads and whatnot on BOTH sides?

Yes.

7. You said you refunded on something and credited my card, but all I see is a debit on my statement. Are you a bunch of rip-off bastards or what?!

Whenever a refund is found to be due, from us to you, it’s done that very same night, after 22:30 Pacific, when our receipts for the day are batch-dumped to the credit card processor. We can’t do a refund any sooner because as far as the system knows, your transaction does not yet exist (therefore it can’t be reversed). At the moment we process a refund, an email is sent to the email address you used when you placed the order, confirming the refund, giving you a reference number for it, and stating what the refund was for. After that, it is up to YOUR BANK (or financial institution, card issuer, etc.) to decide when they want to post that refund to your statement. Banks, credit card companies and financial institutions, will usually hold onto those funds. It will usually take your bank or card company from a couple of days, to ten days or more, to finally get around to giving your money back to you, after we have given it back to them.

8. I placed my order, but now I realize I made a mistake. Can I email you with a correction or update? Please? Just this once??

You must SUBMIT A NEW FORM. Just submit the form — do NOT continue through the payment process again, or you’ll be charged again!

9. I tried to buy something on your site but my credit card was declined. This is BS! My credit card should work!

The most common reasons an issuing bank declines a transaction include, but are not limited to:

• The cardholder has exceeded the account’s credit limit.
• The cardholder is late on payment to the issuing bank.
• The cardholder has specified to the issuing bank that the cardholder would not like Internet-based transactions to be approved for that card.
• These are usually referred to as [REASON 2] by your card company. “Reason 2” is an error issued by YOUR card company, and not by us or any company affiliated with us. You must resolve all Reason-2 declines with your own card company. 
  

10. REASON 2, REASON 4, REASON 27 Declines, more info

REASON 27: The address you entered as your billing address does not match the address the credit card company has on file for that card.

REASONS 2, 4: . It is an error that YOUR card company issues to OUR card processor prohibiting the sale under any conditions. We simply pass that error code to you. There is nothing we can change in our cart that will stop a REASON 2 or 4 decline from being issued, BECAUSE IT IS ISSUED DIRECTLY FROM YOUR OWN BANK OR CREDIT CARD COMPANY, and NOT from, or by, us. We have no more control over your bank or its policies than you have over ours.

Even MORE info: 
A REASON 2 decline means that (1) you are over your card limit and your card issuer has frozen further use of your card until you pay down the balance, or (2) it means that you are late on your payments and your card company has frozen your card until you pay down the balance, or (3) the cardholder has specified to the issuing bank that the cardholder would not like Internet-based transactions to be approved for that card.

11. REASON #3 Declines:

When we query the card processor’s reason-code service for “Response Reason 3” we receive the following (note that in these cases the customer will need to use an alternate method of payment as we will not accomodate this non-standard request — we see this roughly once every two or three years):

“This transaction has been declined. Notes: Integration Team Suggestions: A referral to a voice authorization center was received. Please call the appropriate number below for a voice authorization. 
For American Express call: (800) 528-2121 
For Diners Club call: (800) 525-9040 
For Discover/Novus call: (800) 347-1111 
For JCB call : (800) 522-9345 
For Visa/MasterCard call: (800) 228-1122 
Once an authorization is issued, you can then submit the transaction through your Virtual Terminal as a Capture Only transaction.”

12. REASON #65 Declines

REASON 65: This means you entered the card code (located on the back of your card) incorrectly. This could mean that you simply typed the wrong number and you should try again, or it could mean that the card you’re trying to use is not really yours, and if we print and ship your product, we’ll never get paid for it.

13. You charged my card once, twice (or thrice) even though my order was declined!

There are two possible reasons for this:

(a) You clicked the “SUBMIT ORDER” button more than once. This has become such a huge problem that most banks and credit card processors have now set up a bit of software that looks for multiple transactions like this, which are usually made only seconds apart, and automatically cancels one of them. It may take a day or three for this cancellation to be seen on your credit card statement. If, after a few days, it still shows as a debit, simply notify us POLITELY and we’ll immediately look into it. If a double or triple charge shows in our books, we’ll credit as appropriate. However, sometimes a double charge will NOT show in our books. In that case you’re dealing with a problem within your own bank. See below:

(b) Even in the case of a cancelled order, YOUR BANK will still often reserve the funds that would have gone to pay for your order. In the case of a declined transaction, WE do not EVER get your money, YOUR Credit Card Bank has put a hold on it. This is the policy of YOUR BANK, and we have no control over it. Your bank will usually automatically clear those funds within a few days. Please do NOT email us to ask why we charged your card, when the order was cancelled. We have NOT charged your card in this instance. It is the policy of YOUR BANK.

14. I filled out one of your forms and clicked SUBMIT, but either NOTHING happened, or something “bad” happened! What kind of idiots are you, anyway?!

Sometimes a connection between you and us (Houston) is slow and/or in the process of failing. Sometimes a bit can “get stuck” in your browser’s cache, especially with Microsoft, not so much with Mozilla browsers. If this is the case, shutting down the browser and restarting it will usually cure it. Or even rebooting the computer, especially if it’s Windows. Clearing the cache in a browser will often or usually help as well — instructions are different depending on the browser. Also, a common problem is large image attachments. Pics need not usually be over, say, 100-200k, yet sometimes customers try to upload some ten meg (10,000k) monstrosity. Our forms will actually handle those, provided the customer is willing to sit and wait. Unfortunately, we’ve found no form that RELIABLY shows the progress of an upload, so we’ve opted for a form which doesn’t even try to show the progress.

15. I Tried to Order but Got an “ERROR 21”!

Please try your order again.

When we run that error through the credit card processor we get the following.

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