Not very secure... (Comet.co.uk)

Member Name: driver

Product:	Comet.co.uk
Date:	24/10/01 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent price, Good description, Photo of product

Disadvantages: Not a secure site (or at least not all of the time), Does not recognise my switch card for some reason

I have been shopping for a digital camera for my dad's birthday. After using a price comparison shopping site, I found that Comet.co.uk had an Olympus C1 digital camera for £198 that I wanted to buy. Comet provided a photo of the camera and a very thorough breakdown of specifications and description of what is on offer. Plus, it offered a 1 year guarantee. I was hooked.

I put the camera into my basket and clicked on the checkout button. Since I had never registered on the Comet site, I had to provide my details as well as username and password. I entered the delivery address and could select which time that I would like my camera delivered to. Options started as soon as 2 days ahead with times like 9am-1pm and 5pm-9pm on weekdays and including Saturday and Sunday. It promised that I would be sent an email with the designated time for delivery.

However, once I clicked on the times and clicked to proceed, the site crashed. I had to start all over again. It did remember my username and password so I logged on and tried again to pick my delivery time. This time the page loaded successfully. However the next page included an area where I could imput my credit card details but the page was not secure (no pad lock!).

This made me feel unsafe so I opened another browser and intended to go to 'www.safeweb.com' and buy my camera this way. However, once I opened a new browser, there was a pad lock on this new page. A bit stupid and nonsensical.

I imput my Switch card details and pressed enter and a window popped up saying 'Incorrect Switch number'. I tried again and got the same message. I can only think that because I don't have an issue number (all Bank of Scotland issued Switch cards don't have issue numbers but only valid from dates), the computer had a problem with it and couldn't compute. I was left without a digital camera.

This is very disappointing after all of the time that I spent tryi
ng to find the best deal and all the time I spent trying to checkout on the Comet site. They did not provide any helpline on the site or I would have tried it. Rather, they provide the option of paying by mail, or by fax. Both options that are not very efficient.

I will not shop with Comet again until they get their site sorted out!

Summary: