Follow-up

Well, I am afraid I was too harsh on the local baby furniture purveyor that I blasted in my last posting. Their third-party delivery firm was prompt and courteous, and the order was filled without mistakes or complaints.

I was also too quick to judge about their payment policy. I wrongfully assumed that they were already protected by my having paid a deposit on the furniture. When I dug a little deeper, I learned that this particular store follows proper credit card consumer protection protocols by not keeping any record of cardholder data from previous transactions.

Having written about this very topic for one of my clients in the high-tech security sector, I should have known, or at least suspected, that this was the case. No merchant worth their salt would keep that kind of data laying around, because of the liability. Furthermore, the payment card providers (VISA, MasterCard, AmEx, etc) demand that merchants strictly adhere to this policy.

That said, I want to highly recommend Lullaby Baby (http://www.lullaby-baby.com/) in Columbia, MD. They have terrific merchandise, knowledgeable (and patient) staff, and are the antidote to tired superstores like Babies-R-Us. I'm also really enjoying my experience shopping online at The Natural Baby (http://www.thenaturalbaby.com). The owner is extremely helpful (and also patient, especially with aging parents), and knows the answer to just about everything you could think to ask about her product lines.