The Garden Gift Shop Help Desk
Here's where you'll find answers to common questions about Brooklyn Botanic Garden's online store, and about shopping online. If you don't see your question answered, please contact customer service.
Credit-card security
I clicked the button to complete my order and nothing happened!
I got an error message!
I'm not comfortable with sending my credit card number over the Internet. Can I order your products over the phone?
What's a cookie?
Credit-Card Security
The Garden Gift Shop uses SSL encryption to ensure the security of your personal information. Read on to learn more:
What is SSL? SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It provides a secure, encrypted transmission mechanism to exchange data, usually between a user's software such as a web browser and a remote server. The encrypted data is difficult for anyone other than the original sender and the recipient to decipher.
You can tell an SSL secured page by looking at the URL. If the URL begins with https:// (instead of http://), the document comes from a secure server.
Why is SSL important for electronic commerce?
The Internet is an inherently insecure mechanism for transporting data. Most data will pass through many intermediate points between its point of origin and ultimate destination. Anyone with the appropriate equipment and knowledge may "capture" this data at any of these intermediate points or any other point in the data's journey. They may choose to examine the information contained within the data, manipulate it so as to change the original meaning of the data, or even impersonate the original sender. Encryption mechanisms such as SSL create a set of rules that improve the security of internet communication. The rules created prevent eavesdropping, manipulation, or impersonation of data.
Credit card numbers are the most valuable pieces of data someone could steal from the Internet. Because of this, it is imperative to secure communications that involve transmission of credit card numbers.
How safe is it for me to enter a credit card number on an SSL page? The transmission of the number from your computer to the web server is very safe. However, as when providing your credit card number over the phone or giving your credit card number to a waiter in a restaurant, you should trust the merchant you are giving your credit card number to.
Click here to read the Federal Trade Commission's guide to online shopping.
I clicked the button to complete my order and nothing happened!
BE PATIENT. Normally you will get a reponse in a few seconds, but in times of heavy store traffic, it can take up to several minutes for your order to be processed. DO NOT CLICK AGAIN. You may be double-billed!
If you have not received confirmation on your web browser screen within five minutes, check your e-mail. If your order has been processed, you should have received confirmation via e-mail. If you have not received confirmation of your order in any way, contact customer service at customerservice@bbg.org.
I got an error message!
DON'T PANIC. You did nothing wrong. On rare occasions, the store will fail to correctly process an order. While your order has probably not been sent, your shopping basket is most likely intact, and we'll be able to fix the problem easily.
DO NOT TRY TO RESEND YOUR ORDER. Chances are, you'll get the same error message, and you might create a duplicate order. Instead, contact customer service at customerservice@bbg.org.
I'm not comfortable with sending my credit card number over the Internet. Can I order your products over the phone?
Yes! To place telephone orders for BBG handbooks or to inquire about other products, please call the Garden Gift Shop at 718-623-7280.
What's a cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of information that a server can place in a browser to later identify the browser.
Cookies can be used for a wide variety of purposes. When used with an online shopping system, a cookie allows the server to identify the user and keep track of what has been ordered. Some systems use cookies to present a "personalized" look to a website so users can choose what they want to see. This information can then be stored so that the options are already set whenever the user visits the site again.
What a cookie is not.
A cookie cannot be used to get data from your hard drive, get your email address, or steal sensitive information about your person. In fact, a cookie does not really know who you are. You are just a number that the cookie sets and that is all you are. The cookie does not know other information such as your sex, your name, or what games you have on your computer. However, if you do answer a questionaire on a website that sets a cookie when you fill in your name or demographic information, then the server can later link your cookie to the information you entered. Remember, though, that a cookie is just a line of text in a file.