Some Surface Book preorders have failed to connect with Microsoft. Users have been experiences authentication issues and various error messages.
Right now, the Surface Book is on backorder. So for those who've had their pre-orders botched, by themselves or Microsoft, the wait time for their Surface Books have been bumped up to seven to eight week windows.
Over at the Internet's unofficial forum site, Reddit, users have sharing preorder horror stories.
"My Discover card texts me before large charges go through," says Redditor birdhost. "I have to respond within a certain time frame or the charges get declined. The charge went through at 5am, I slept through it, charge got declined."
With the thread still swelling with new cases, this doesn't appear to be an isolated issue.
"I got canceled this morning as well, no attempts to try to get a new card or anything," said Redditor brokenhalf. "This is ridiculous. Cleared everything with the bank but now I am being pushed back in the queue on the 7-8 week timeline. The call in center for MS Sales is saying there is nothing they can do about it."
As supported by various other news outlets and tons of other horror stories, the preorder problems appear to stem from payment processing. After several failed attempts to authenticate a card, for whatever reason, the payments processing system flags the associated cards and the original reservations are lost.
The problems with the payment processing have been amplified because Microsoft undershot its preorder projections for the Surface Book. And the Surface Book is a sexy product. Maybe this high demand and furor over failed preorders could help a bit in the confidence department.
A Microsoft spokesperson shared the following with Tech Times:
"We are processing and shipping the previously placed Surface Book pre-orders, some needed to have order details re-entered to properly process the transaction. We will be contacting impacted customers, and should they wish to keep their order, it will be shipped within a few days of being re-entered."
Microsoft opened early orders for the Surface Book on Oct. 7, ahead of its Oct. 25 release date, and the laplet sold out in short order.
This Windows 10 laplet, a cross between a tablet and a laptop, features either a Core i5 or i7 chip from Intel's brand-spanking new Skylake family of processors. It has a 13.5-inch display that has a Retina-grade resolution of 3,000 x 2,000 -- that's more pixels than the 15-inch MacBook with Retina, actually.
There's a 5 MP chat cam on its face and an 8 MP world camera on its back. There are two full-size USB ports, a detachable keyboard and the Surface Pen.
