posted on October 19, 2001 08:43:58 AM
Hi, I was in the middle of printing postage and took about a 5 minute break. Came back to print more postage, and I got an "internet error #12029". It said something about not being connected to the internet. Well, that's not true - I am able to get into everything else just fine. I even rebooted and tried again, but same error.
When I tried calling their 1-800# number, the first time I got a message saying to call a long-distance # for tech support. When I called the 2nd time and got an operator, she connected me to a busy signal and then it hung up on me. The 3rd time I called, and tried to get the operator again, it said to "leave a message for the operator"!!
What's going on? Anyone else having problems printing postage this morning with Endicia? I also had this problem yesterday and I emailed their support and they have yet to answer. This is not like them at all.
posted on October 19, 2001 08:51:46 AM
I had something like this happen to me once, EG, but it's been a while and I can't remember the error # to be sure it's the same.
Anyway, in my case it turned out to be that I had a # (number sign) in the address, as in Apt. #6, and I run adsubtract on my computer. For some reason, if you are running adsubtract, you cannot have a # in your address or you will get errors that either say you have lost your connection, or that there is no such state--weird stuff.
But, if you are not running adsubtract and if you do not have a #, then I don't know
posted on October 19, 2001 10:31:57 AM
Hey Executive Girl,
You are NOT alone! This happened to me yesterday, and of course (like all software), it blames the user. It was some tech problem on the endicia end of things. Later on, the postage printed like a charm with the same connection session that just gave me a "You ain't connected to the internet" type message.
I'd just keep trying intermittently, as it's probably a case of their servers being overworked momentarily.
posted on October 19, 2001 11:14:31 AM
Thanks BlackJack!
Yesterday I had the same problem - I could not print postage whatsoever.
This morning I was able to print about $100 worth, then I took a little break, came back, and it wouldn't let me print any more.
A little while ago I tried again and it just let me finish up my postage. However - I tried to buy postage from my Paypal CC, and it kept freezing up on me.
I went to my Paypal account, and I was charged 3 times for postage from when I TRIED to buy and it froze on me. That money was not added to my Endicia account.
So now I have to contact Paypal and/or Endicia. Ugh.
Endicia uses a credit card gateway called SurePay (www.surepay.com), a division of First Data Merchant Services (FDMS). The US Postal Service contracted with FDMS to perform all of their credit card processing and all PC postage vendors must use FDMS.
SurePay periodically has outages and yesterday they had one for an hour or so. That was the reason you may have seen postage purchase operations fail. We are working with the USPS to establish alternative (e.g. dual) CC processing routes.
Coincidently, we had a problem with our ZIP+4 validation servers yesterday morning and today. We have identified a problem where some of our larger batch users are submitting very strange street addresses (I think due to an incorrect import operation -- in some cases the street addresses are URL's like http://mysite.com/mypage.htm and in other cases they are all question marks!). Our servers process over 1 million ZIP+4 requests per day from a wide variety of our mailing clients.
The invalid street address lines caused the USPS ZIP+4 lookup engine (which all PC Postage providers use) to crash. We notified the USPS developer in Memphis and he is fixing his code. Meanwhile we have written some protective code around the USPS engine to prevent such obviously-bogus street addresses from ever reaching the ZIP+4 lookup engine.
posted on October 19, 2001 12:41:27 PM
Hi Harry & thanks for the update, I sure appreciate it!
I am still waiting for a phone call from Endicia though regarding my credit card problem. I was charged twice for postage that came out of my Paypal account, but my Endicia account was not credited for those amounts.
posted on October 19, 2001 02:26:24 PMExecutiveGirl
I brought this up to one of our programmers and here's what he said:
"The paypal double charging thing is actually a Paypal problem. I don't have
the facts for her case, but we researched this early this summer when other
customers asked. Either PayPal is temporarily double charging (once for
authorizing and once for settlement) which later goes away, or Paypal is
"charging" when a transaction is declined, referred, or otherwise not
authorized. Those later clear up, but sometimes it takes a few days.
The same thing often happens with other credit cards, but this is more of an
issue with Paypal customers because they are used to checking their charges
in real time."
IOW, this evidently will clear up by itself in a day or so on the PayPay system. If it doesn't, be *sure* to let me know!
posted on October 19, 2001 02:56:29 PM
Thanks Harry!
I was just told the same thing by one of your customer service reps on the phone. I will keep checking my Paypal account and if it doesn't clear up I will let you guys know.
Once again, I'm very impressed with your customer service! I had 2 problems today, and both were quickly taken care of.
