Unfortunately, the amount of fraudsters who try to 'score' stuff from us is quite high. Everyday, we get quite a bit of fake / fraudulent orders. Our staff at the office is neither equipped not trained in fraud detection. So we use external service like Riskified. It is also very stressful for the employees handling, since many of the fraudsters use very sophisticated 'social engineering' techniques. There are even forums and websites dedicated to this sort. You need an online ID card or receipt, there are even photoshop templates. Audeze and other high-end vendors are targeted since the value they can get by 'scoring' one item is quite high. In some of the forums once you 'score' a small item and prove you belong, you can get entry into member's only area. It is very hard for us to keep up. So we decided to use professional services like Riskified. Many companies our size use them also. We think this is a reasonable policy and many of our peers in the industry also follow it.
>>they basically told me to get lost
Hmm. For the last few years we have had the same people in customer service and essentially the same policy. Who did you talk to ?
If it gets rejected on our site, we ask the customer to buy the product from Amazon or from a local dealer who has additional means to verify the orders.
I understand your situation, but at the same time have never had this issue with any other online company ever, even high end audio companies, dive gear companies (just as expensive and small as Audeze headphones), and others, which makes it hard to accept this as the only option. And even with that being the case, the unwillingness to even consider an appeal is hugely disappointing. I can understand Riskified, but not with zero appeal.
I don't remember who I spoke to, it was a couple years ago. I mentioned I was a member here, had been for a long time, and said I'd be willing to provide any information, documentation, or proof necessary to prove my identity, and in turn I was told they weren't willing to look into it, and was simply told Audeze was no longer willing to sell to me and there was nothing I could do about it (that's not even an exaggeration). This is after I called you guys because you also weren't even willing to tell me my order was cancelled, I was dreaming about listening to headphones that were never going to come, and had already been cancelled. That's certainly not out of your hands.
Unfortunately, at the time I was a college student with almost no money to my name. I'd been pining for a set of Audeze's for years and finally was able to get a set because of some intense discount you were having for some reason or another. Buying from Amazon was not an option, as I could not afford them for the price they were on Amazon. I unfortunately never got those headphones. I also tried to buy a pair of LCD-2C's years later and the same thing happened. Unfortunately, this was during the pre-release sale and so were not available on Amazon (or from anywhere else, even my dealer). Waiting was also not an option, as they were meant to be a christmas present, and no one would have them in stock until a couple months after Christmas. Fortunately, I was able to ask a family member to grab them for me and everything worked out, but it very easily could not have, which would have not only made things months late, but at a higher cost too.
Of course, it's not the end of the world, I'll live, but it is far outside of the usual experience with a company like yours, and it looks bad. Up until recently, I refused to buy anything from Audeze, and I'm still wary today. And it worries me, if you start doing this as your company grows, your reputation can really be hurt.
Like I said before, my issue wasn't with Riskified, but with your response to it all. Give customers like me *some* kind of way to buy from you, since it seems Riskified is rife with false positives, and you often offer things to customers of your website that you don't offer to your Amazon customers. Would Amazon Pay work? You said they're able to verify buyers more effectively than you can. It even says on their site it works through your own website and store, and provides their fraud protection. No other company has ever treated me like this, and it really sucks because it's a company I really like.
I want to throw money at you and be a big ol' Audeze fanboy, but this situation is making it really tough.