So, even if you Exclude certain carrier methods and/or countries in Shipping Manager, cart allows customers to check out even though shipping shows up in cart as $0.00.

Customer can by-pass the following message:

"Please review and provide the requested information.

You must select a shipping method.

No Shipping Rates available for your shipping address"


simply by clicking on the last button to process payment:

Login Address Order Options Review & Payment which brings customer to the final step to input payment and he/she gets away with not paying any shipping cost at all!

I can see some people exploiting this serious cart loophole and not paying a cent for shipping and I have the fun job of cancelling these types of orders and fighting with credit card companies trying to get these cancelled. Suggestions anyone? I've created a ticket for this as well.

Cart allows customer to click on last step of checkout and proceed to payment, even though there's no shipping cost charged.

Am I the only person finding these loopholes???

See cart example below:

Review Your Order

Ship To:
britt zubie
156 fadsfljk
blag
Afghanistan

Bill To:
britt zubie
156 fadsfljk
blag
Afghanistan
due@due.com

Your Cart Total:
Product Total: $58.00
Shipping/Handling (): $0.00
Tax: $0.00

Final Total: $58.00

Select Your Payment Method

Pay with Account Number

Please enter your account number with us
Account Number: *

UPDATE ON THIS ISSUE:

Here's the reason the cart allowed customer to proceed to check out, bypassing shipping:

Apparently, something was orginally set up in Custom Payment Manager which allowed a customer to charge cart total to a pre-determined account, something I didn't set up. Maybe a default setting? That Custom Payment Method allowed customer to continue checkout by clicking on Review & Payment link , even though shipping showed as being $0.00.

The customer received an on-screen message that the total cart to be charged to their account was $58.00.

However, when I checked in New Orders and viewed the customer Invoice, the Invoice did add on the appropriate shipping, but this was calculated AFTER the customer had completed checkout and entered some bogus account number!

So, the amount on the invoice was not the same amount as the cart total and on-screen message to the customer. Imagine being told on-screen that the total was one figure, then getting an invoice with a completely different total. Sounds confusing? Well, I sure was.

Anyway, if customer has an Account set up with your store, be wary that something funky is going on with the shipping, countries you choose to exclude in Shipping Manager and the invoice. Something isn't calculating properly in cart during last step of checkout, but only if you allow customers to have a pre-determined account. We're not allowing customers to have an account with us and pay for orders by invoice or PO, so it's not a big deal to us, but this might be troublesome to someone else who is using that option.

However, once I deleted the Custom Payment Method, customer cannot continue checkout without shipping being applied. Thanks for your help. I'm almost there! The frustration level is coming down a bit.

Launch date coming soon...time for another coffee (sigh). Have a good night, and thanks again for responding, Mark.

Hey Koolkat,

Just to follow up, new carts have a default custom shipping option enabled that is called, you guessed it, Account Number. This is so clients can test the functionality of their checkout process before they get a payment gateway set up or any other payment method. What you observed is correct, the default setting allows customers to enter any unqualified data into the account field. However, we do recommend, encourage, and suggest to clients thay they thoroughly review all of their site settings prior to going live.

I'm glad everything is resolved. If you have any questions, or need assistance prior to launching to make sure everything is ready to go, you can check out the Go Live Checklist or contact me regarding our tech services department performing a full Site Review that also provides you with a report on all of your cart's functionality. Very nice service indeed.

Of course, we're here 24/7 to assist you with any issues or questions. Thanks again, and good luck with your site!