I’ve talked before about how great a service allofmp3.com provide and how I love buying music from them.

I’m afraid that’s all over now and I would like to tell you how and why.

Three days ago I was talking to a friend of mine about some music we both liked and he said that I absolutely had to listen to a couple of albums by Lacuna Coil. Knowing that there never was anything I wanted to listen to, obscure as it may be that I couldn’t find on allofmp3.com, I went to the site to buy me some records. Quickly locating the band, I went to the order page to pay and download it. I was planning to go for a jog that evening and there’s nothing better than listening to some new music while jogging. Except maybe listening to some new music while not jogging.

Alas, my balance on the site has run dry. I had a buck and a half left from my previous purchases and I need a little over $2 to buy the album. Doing as I already did many times, I clicked the “refill balance” button and chose the “pay by credit card” option. I chose the $25 option and was about to go on my merry way to the world of Lacuna when a red message appeared on my screen:

If you can’t read it, you definitely need to see your proctologist optician. Here’s what it says:

Unfortunately credit card payment is not available at the moment. You can make a payment at http://www.alltunes.com/. You may use your AllofMP3.com login and password.

Alright. I’m a programmer. A (sim)pathetic programmer. I know that things don’t always work the way you want them to. Especially if there’s a gang of drooling lawyers breathing up and down your neck. Fine. Let’s go see what we have at alltunes.com.

The first thing the alltunes.com site asked me was my username and password.

Hmm.. I don’t have any. Where’s that register button? No register button? Wait a minute, something’s fishy here. Let’s go back to allofmp3.com. Oh.. The nice red message says that I can use the same username and password. OK. Back to alltunes. Username gooli, password foobar. We’re in.

By now I was starting to feel like I was 12 again, playing then unforgettable Castle of Dr. Brain.

Let’s see now. Pay by credit card. Yes, that is the option I want. Bla bla, $20. Bla bla, terms and conditions.

And what the HELL is this??

I have to fill out all of this in order to pay you guys? Don’t you already have all my data, including my credit card number from my previous “refills”? And who in the name of all of the above are ChronoPay? I think I was supposed to pay allofmp3.com for some music. Now you want me to pay ChronoPay who will pay alltunes.com who will pay allofmp3.com? Why do I get the distinct feeling there’s some money laundering at play here…

Alright.. So be it.

First name.. Last name.. Address.. City.. Country.. ZIP code.. Bla.. Bla.. Email…

Hey just wait a minute! Where’s Visa in the list of Card types? No Visa? And what the heck is JCB anyway?

Alright, that does it!

Frustrated and annoyed for not being able to pay for the music I wanted to listen to, but not willing to give up just yet, I wrote a nice little email to the folks of allofmp3.com, asking whether the problems were temporary and inquired whether I could pay via PayPal.

It took two days for them to reply but today I found this in my mailbox:

Hello,

We’re sorry, our payment system is not accepting credit card payments at the moment.

At the moment you can add money to your balance on the site of our partner allTunes.com. You can make payment via Diners Club, JCB. Please use this link http://alltunes.com/payment/refill.shtml We’ll inform you when the payment will become available.

You can refill your Allofmp3 balance either with credit card or even with cash - via Xrost service. Xrost sells online prepaid iCards that can be immediately redeemed at Allofmp3. Xrost iCards can be funded by trusted international pay systems which accept both credit cards and cash (if you don’t have a credit card or don’t want to use it online at all). You will even receive a bonus of 10% if you redeam Xrost iCards with us. You need to purchase a prepaid icard of desired value at Xrost.biz web site. After successful payment you can find your icard details (pin code and claim id) on the Orders page of Xrost.biz site and then redeem this icard on the balance page of our site: http://www.alltunes.com/payment/refill_xrost.shtml?

Problem temporary.

Paypal is not present, only Xrost.

Best regards,

Sales Allofmp3.com

You didn’t read that whole text, right? Neither did I. It has a distinct smell of a prefabricated answer. It’s quite obvious that the only thing a real, actual, breathing sales person wrote were the two lines I colored in maroon. And it isn’t even English. At least not any dialect I know of.

To make a long story short(er), I tried what they suggested. I went to the Xrost site, and tried my luck there. After filling out another one of those long forms (somebody has got to figure out a better way to do that already) I’ve been redirected (again!) to another company, this time it was Click&Buy. There I was asked to fill out yet another form that required my birth date of all things, only to find that for some odd reason they aren’t willing to honor my credit card. Don’t know why. The cryptic error message didn’t make any sense:

Please check credit card number and expiration date! Please note, that your credit card’s billing address needs to comply with your chosen country.

Helloo-o! I know how to enter the damn credit card number, the expiration date, the CCV three digit number on the back of the credit card and my mother’s maiden name for verification purposes. I do that a lot!

Damn. DAMN! D-A-M-N ! ! !

And here I am now. I haven’t listened to Lacuna Coil yet. Don’t even know what they sound like.

And I’ve never been more annoyed in my entire online purchasing life.

But maybe I’m the problem. Mom always said I was…