Tim, at a guess what you saw was the confirmation that the web order had been sent from Earthlink’s web store to the USCF for processing.
This is NOT a receipt, it is an order acknowledgement.
Having an order acknowledgement does not mean that it was processed, or that it can be processed, or that it will ever be processed.
There could be a number of things trip it up such as missing information or a denial on the credit card. If the office is unable to resolve the problem and there is insufficient information supplied to contact the member, that transaction may go in the ‘cannot complete’ pile.
If the customer gives us a valid e-mail address (about half of the web orders have one), we send him or her a note within minutes indicating that the order could not be processed. However, if there is no e-mail address, or if it is invalid, or if it is blocked because of anti-spam measures, the customer does not receive any notification that the order was not processed.
In this case, the order got tripped up because of the first name mismatch (Bobby vs Robert). He did give us an e-mail address, assuming it was valid he should have received notification that his order was being sent to the membership department to be processed manually, we sent that e-mail at around 1:35 PM on Friday afternoon.
About 75% of all web orders get processed within a few minutes, with the member usually receiving two e-mails, one from the credit card processor (though it says it comes from uscf@uschess.org with their ID, expiration date and PIN. Those transactions also show up on MSA within a few hours.
Those orders that cannot be processed immediately get sent to the membership department for manual processing. I think they’re about a week behind on them at the moment, they just finished up the ones from December on Monday.
In my spare time (that’s a joke, son!), I’m working on a rewrite of the webstore that will give us true real-time order processing. This will mean that the customer will know right away whether the order has been processed or the reason it was not processed. (In the case of a new membership, the customer will know his USCF ID right away, too.)
Once that new webstore is operational, the specific problem that you encountered here will disappear, online memberships will either be processed with immediate feedback to the member or the member will be told why the order could not be processed. There will be no ambiguity about whether or not the membership was processed.
Each of the options on the exception report has a specific purpose. Some can be approved automatically, others require manual review. Some will trigger a daily re-check of your event to see if pending memberships have been processed yet.
Here’s what happens with each type of request:
A house player request is for a non-member who is playing only because there is an odd number of players. There are limits placed on how many house players can play in a round and how many rounds a house player can play. Those meeting those limitations get approved automatically.
A JTP player request is to be used when the TD has some of those green pre-numbered forms and wants to handle one online instead of sending in the form, which will delay when it gets entered into the system. These cannot be approved automatically because we need to put through a membership transaction. (The TD/A membership module requires that the ID be valid in order to process a renewal on the computer, this was the easiest way I could come up with to get around that limitation, and this request category should only be used when the TD wants to use the green forms.)
A FIDE request is to identify foreign FIDE titled players. These are checked against the latest FIDE list and those IDs that meet the criteria are approved automatically.
A ‘payment by check from this event’ request allows us to match up membership batches with tournament data. If, when your event is checked, the only membership issues are ones for which you have submitted this type of request, you will be able to submit the event for rating using the ‘payment by check’ option. That’s because you’re already sending in a check anyway and we have to wait for the memberships to be processed.
Once we get on the new ratings system how we handle this option may change somewhat, but I still don’t know if we will want to permit credit card payment of a ratings fee when there are checks in transit for the membership dues for those players.
I think it’s bad business policy to charge for a service if you don’t know when you’ll be able to perform it, and if for any reason the event couldn’t be rated for 30 days there are some federal laws that probably apply regarding notice and cancellation options that I’d rather not have to program.
The ‘receipt’ option is for when you have a receipt from another TD. Some of these can be approved automatically, some cannot.
With either the ‘payment by check from this event’ or the ‘receipt’ options, we run a daily check to see if the membership has cleared yet.
The ‘other’ option is for situations that don’t fit into any of the above categories. That’s what you selected for this individual, though since in this case what we’re really doing is waiting for the membership department to get to that online order the exception request isn’t really needed.
I don’t think we need a separate category for ‘online order pending’, especially since the new webstore will eliminate any necessity for it.
Note that if you were to re-code your request as a ‘receipt’ it would then trigger the daily check. (I’d put ‘USCF WEBSITE’ in as the affiliate name.)
Any time someone cannot show you a current ID or proof of payment (and an order confirmation is NOT proof of payment), you have to decide what you want to do.
If you don’t want to collect dues again, even though our rulebook indicates you should probably do so, then you have to allow time for whatever it was you accepted in lieu of proof of membership to complete. You’re still cutting a good two weeks off the processing time for your event compared to mailing it to the office.
This is really no change from what has always happened behind the scenes at the USCF office. When you mail in a report, you’re left in the dark as to what’s happening with it. With online submission, you’re more aware of what’s delaying the rating of your report. I think that’s better than not knowing the reasons why.
An even sticker problem, IMHO, is when a player shows you a receipt from another TD (or says he paid that TD but doesn’t have a receipt). As you wrote in the rulebook, TDs have to consider these on a case-by-case-basis.
But what happens when that other TD doesn’t send in the membership?
This is a lose-lose proposition all the way around. The member doesn’t have the membership he paid for and your event is going to get delayed because you have a non-member in it in violation of rule 23C.