14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s ultimate laptop, the Surface Book, is currently available for pre-order, with the first units projected to ship sometime later this month, but some of the users who had already reserved their unit found that that the company canceled their order for no clear reason.
After further investigation, it turns out that some banks actually blocked payments because of what they thought to be fraud, although all customers claim they are the owners of the cards and accounts used to pre-order the Surface Book.
Microsoft has, however, submitted emails to those affected by this to inform that their orders were canceled, and everyone needs to pre-order the Surface Book again. And wait for several more weeks, that is.
Everything working fine with PayPal though
Right now, it’s not yet clear why banks actually flagged these payments as fraud, but it actually happened to several customers who pre-ordered the device.
Reddit user jmichaelstone explains:
“This happened to me, too, with the email saying the payment authorization failed. Tried it again, and it said it still failed. I assume it's my bank's rather aggressive fraud prevention, since it's such a large amount, but the message said something like 'You can try four more times, before the order is canceled.' Then I noticed an option to pay via PayPal. That one worked fine, even though the money's coming from the same place. Go figure.”
Microsoft’s isn’t offering these customers the chance to get the Surface Book among the first even though it’s pretty clear that it wasn’t their fault for the payment getting blocked, so those impacted by their banks flagging the transaction as fraud might have to wait a bit longer to get their laptops.
In the meantime, shipping times are increasing for the Surface Book, so if you want to get the top 1TB version, for instance, you’ll have to wait until early 2016 to get it at your door.
Update: Microsoft says it's now contacting affecting impacted customers and everyone will get their Surface Books on time.