[senn_liu]

Last Saturday, I was checking out HeadRoom's site when I noticed that they had the HifiMAN He-500 listed at $499. I had been pondering a new headphone purchase and had about $400-$700 to spend, so it seemed pretty perfect.
 
I placed my order and paid using PayPal. Then, nothing seemed to happen. The purchase was confirmed but there was no word on shipping details. I figured I should at least wait till Monday, so I did and eventually corresponded with them via email, asking for a tracking number. Here's the reply I got:
 

 
 
 
How I responded:
 

 
 
What do you think...were HeadRoom being jerks, was I being a jerk, or are we all jerks?

 

[Jamey Warren]

Hi senn_liu,
 
Sorry, it is not our intention to be jerks.
 
We do in fact review every order placed on our website.
 
Your order was declined due to an unconfirmed shipping address.
 
While your country may not have a tradition of fraud, we have had many instances of international fraudulent orders and thus we have to place more restrictions on these orders.
 
Please forgive us. We are implementing much better tools for fraud prevention. That said, I still don't think we would ship to an unconfirmed address.
 
Let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
 
Much appreciated,
Jamey

 

[ClieOS]

I would add that, I am a verified Paypal user as well, but in Malaysia (which does suffer from a bad reputation of online fraud because there are known Nigerian syndicate in my country, but that's beside the point) and doesn't have a confirmed address as well. I think the problem isn't much that we don't want to have a confirmed address, but the fact that Paypal doesn't offer service to confirm any address in many countries. There must be a better way around this if HeadRoom want to do oversea business.
 
I copied this from an email reply from Paypal regarding address confirmation:
 

 E) Can I confirm my street address?

We are currently unable to confirm addresses in Malaysia. We only mark an address as confirmed when we verify that the credit card billing and shipping address are the same.

We use automated verification methods supplied by credit card issuers or third party vendors to confirm the addresses of our customers. These verification methods are not supplied by all card issuers and as such are currently only available to customers in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. Most addresses outside of the U.S., U.K. and Canada aren't able to be confirmed.

Sellers can use the presence of a confirmed address to determine risk when considering transactions where Seller Protection may be unavailable. Your seller can contact us to find out about their eligibility for Seller Protection.

We suggest you contact your seller and explain that you are not able to confirm your address.
 

 

[senn_liu]

Just an update:
 
Mike from HeadRoom did get back to me to clarify that my order had been cancelled due to my unconfirmed shipping address - as Jamey pointed out above.
Not much to be done to rectify the situation at this point, but here's the last of my correspondence with Mike (surprise included):
 

 

 
Moral of the story: If you intend to order from HeadRoom, get your PayPal address confirmed somehow. Or just forget it and grab the used T1 !!