U.S. PICAXE Distributor

R

Rooster

New Member
Just wanted to pass along my experience with the U.S distributor for PICAXE products, World-Educational-Services.

I put my order in on Monday and received my parts on Wednesday, and shipping is FREE in the US. That is what I call prompt service!
(and no, I don't work for them).

I will order from them again without hesitation.
 
C

Charliem

Senior Member
Hi Rooster,
I browsed around their web site and I could not find anything about picaxe.Can you post a link?
 
A

andrewpro

New Member
You can also try www.picaxe-usa.com <A href='http://www.picaxe-usa.com' Target=_Blank>External Web Link</a>

Then click to enter the site (it comes up with a flash intro or soemthin on the front page).

--Andy P
 
P

parts-man73

Member
I've placed 2 orders with them so far. Both times I received my Picaxe's within 2 days. They have recently done alot of work on their website. It wasn't much to look at before, now it looks more professional.

No complaints here!
 
J

jpyle1

New Member
Is it just me, or am I missing something on World Educational Services page for credit card information entry? I do not seem to see any indication of a secure page, like maybe https:// , or a lock icon in the taskbar. I am not much on sending card info on a non-secure link. Then again the older I get, the more I find that I miss sometimes. (I guess I could just ask my spouse, as she knows everything in the world, and some stuff on 3 other planets.) Thanks-----
 
P

parts-man73

Member
hhmm.... good question, I like to think that I check for &quot;HTTPS&quot; before I give out a credit card #, but I don't remember. Hope I didn't send it over an insecure connection.
Of course if anyone wants my identity, they can have it ;-)
 
W

whizzer

Senior Member
No, don&#8217;t worry tooo much Partsman! :)
There&#8217;s plenty of &#8216;identities&#8217; that crackers have to choose from these days!

ZDnet recently reported that <i>over 300 ] </i> US banks had their customer-details hacked by a group in Spain. And just prior to that, it was reported that Veteran Affairs had 26.5 million records compromised by hackers -although hacking may no longer be the correct term for it!
 
A

andrewpro

New Member
Where did you see that veterans records thing &quot;reported&quot; ? It wasn't hackers that got the veterans records (of which I'm one of them!! The &quot;stolen&quot; veterans, not the hackers). An employee took a laptop home that he wasn't supposed to and the laptop was stolen when his house was robbed over the weekend.

Nothing to do with hackers/internet what-so-ever.

--Andy P

Edited by - andypro on 13/06/2006 00:04:13
 
J

jpyle1

New Member
Well, for what is worth I went back today and got a secure server this time. Put in an order and I will see how long it takes. Last Friday I got a notice from the company that I worked for, saying they had a laptop stolen from their unit that deals with health care and are offering a free paid year of credit monitoring. 30+ thousand IDs , and it has not been recovered.
 
E

erdc

Member
I do not know if this is coincidence or not, but I placed an order with them on 6-7-06, and on 6-9-06 my bank called me and told me that I had a lot of credit card charges. It turns out I did not make those charges, and that someone got my card number and had a $$Grand ol' time. They have closed that credit card and now issuing me another.

I think I will just send a check next time.
 
J

jpyle1

New Member
Ouch, I could have gone all day without hearing that. I think I am going into flinch mode at this point. I have had no order confirmation yet. (They say older folks don`t need much sleep--That`s good because I may not get any sleep tonight!!)
 
E

erdc

Member
I just got a reply back from the USA distributor. He tells me that he had paid for a secure site. He is looking into this security issue to see just what is up. I told him to post his findings back to this post.

I will do business in the future with him. (Free shipping? He is the best thing going for Picaxe here in the USA!). He is professional and reasonable. I had ordered a certain project board kit from him, but he sent me a similar but different kit than what I had ordered. After I told him of the error, he said just keep it and he will send the one that I ordered.
I can not hold anything against him for I do not know for sure it was his site that had my credit card hack. It could have been the Canadian site that hacked my card. For you see, I did not know that there was a American distributor, until after I placed my order with Canada, and then turned around and made a purchase with the USA counter part. I would rest easy tonight, like most credit cards, you are not liable for fraudulent charges.


Sorry abOUTe my spelling/editing. I have one of those crasy Canadian spell Chequers you know.

Edited by - erdc on 13/06/2006 06:22:17

Go Oilers!


Edited by - erdc on 13/06/2006 06:34:42
 
W

whizzer

Senior Member
Hi Andypro,
I kinda thought you may have been a Vet, and I have a lot of respect for that.

And I&#8217;ve since found out that you&#8217;re right, the Vet info was stolen by means of Laptop theft, which a headline summary on the subject did not at first reveal. Instead, words like &#8216;breached&#8217; &amp; &#8216;compromised&#8217; had been used. Confusion came about because this news had been discussed along with other issues which were definitely of an internet nature. I subsequently found further info about this here: <A href='http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6075212.html' Target=_Blank>External Web Link</a>

The issue with the 300+ banks was definitely an Internet exposure, and was covered at this site by George Ou, (a Ziff Davis staffer): <A href='http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=238' Target=_Blank>External Web Link</a>

And some further comments by Ziff Davis senior staffer David Berlind were made here: <A href='http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3128&amp;tag=nl.e539' Target=_Blank>External Web Link</a> It's also interesting to read members comments on this subject at the Ziff Davis Forum. (These are included near the bottom of the page for each of the above web links).

But in the end, I guess it doesn&#8217;t matter which way customer information is stolen &#8211;if the end result is that personal information can be gained in sufficient quantity to make identity theft possible.

It sure does seem like things do need to be improved to guard against these sorts of problems!

PS: I take an interest in this because (amongst other things), I have responibilities for computer security.
Regards to all

Edited by - whizzer on 13/06/2006 11:12:05
 
G

GaryB

New Member
Just to inform our wonderful customers! Our shopping cart is SECURE! To verify my statement, just order a PICAXE chip and go to checkout. Do not complete the order, so that you do not have to pay for it. However, while doing that, observe the small lock on the lower right corner. I can assure you IT WAS NOT THROUGH US that any credit card was stolen.

Dr.Andrew Veronis
 
G

GaryB

New Member
Just to inform our wonderful customers! Our shopping cart is SECURE! To verify my statement, just order a PICAXE chip and go to checkout. Do not complete the order, so that you do not have to pay for it. However, while doing that, observe the small lock on the lower right corner. I can assure you IT WAS NOT THROUGH US that any credit card was stolen.

Dr.Andrew Veronis, World Educational Services
 
hippy

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
<i>Our shopping cart is SECURE! </i>

Not entirely, some of the links which should be &quot;https&quot; are actually &quot;http&quot;. It all depends on how one navigates through the site as to whether one ends up with a secure page when providing billing details or not ...

1) Browse to http://www.world-educational-services.com/HomePage.asp
2) Click the &quot;ARM&quot; button ( 5th from bottom )
3) Click on &quot;Buy Now&quot; at bottom of page
4) Click on the &quot;Online Store&quot; button or link

Go through the process of buying something, adding to the cart and proceeding to Checkout. By that point it's still running &quot;http&quot; rather than &quot;https&quot;.

<i>I can assure you IT WAS NOT THROUGH US that any credit card was stolen. </i>

I have no reason whatsoever to dispute that claim and don't.
 
W

whizzer

Senior Member
And on another matter, an interesting thing has happened since I posted some web links to Ziff Davis on the previous page of our forum here not many hours ago.

In reference to the first link, Ziff Davis seems to have significantly changed their page (shortened it), and have reduced the number of contributions appearing in their &#8216;Talkback&#8217; user comment. And while I can&#8217;t be sure about the other two pages, but they appear to be shorter also. I can only guess why this has happened&#8230;

EDIT / UPDATE
The Ziff Davis link which seemed to have been heavily modified yesterday is back to its original state now. Perhaps it was simply caused by a glitch in their system, or they were doing maintenance or something &#8211;anyway it&#8217;s all OK again now.

Edited by - whizzer on 14/06/2006 03:10:12
 
A

andrewpro

New Member
I re-read what I posted and it looked like Iw as being kinda snippy. I just want to say that's not the case...I was honestly interested where you read it.

I think it's all a scam. The &quot;one and only time&quot; the employee happens to have ever brought the laptop home, and his house just happens to be broken into and the laptop happens to be stolen...hmmm. Coincidence? I think not! I know he's in on it somehow. They should nail him to the wall.

--Andy P
 
A

alimauro

New Member
I have made several purchases from Andrew at World Education Service and i can tell you it was prompt, professional and courteous. This company is top notch and indespensible to all of us in our PicAxe hobbies and professional class rooms.
 
S

SIRA

Member
I have placed an order for a few PICAXE components with Prof.Andrew Veronis, and made the payment thru US Postal Money Order. Within three days the material arrived thru post. And above all Prof.Veronis is very courteous and pleasing to interact with. I find even the pricing a shade less than others. Indeed you do us a favour. Thank you Prof.Veronis.
 
J

jpyle1

New Member
Just an update if anyone is interested---I placed a credit card order with World Education Services on the 13th and got it today. I will be buying from there folks again! However, they do not confirm orders with E-mail, makes it a bit unnerving for me.
 
C

coastergeekrtc

Member
I'm looking at powering my chip from the wall outlet and see that World Educational Services has a power adapter. The details are:
Input:110-230 VAC
Output: 6 volts, 500 mA
Will this work fine, or would it be beter to use a 5 volt one? I just don't want to make the voltage reduction needed to take a regulated 9 volt supply to 5 volts...I'd much rather already have it at the voltage I need.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top