Yes it's common with EA. Usually gets asked every other month or so and Travis will put up the reasoning for it.
I don't think this is good business practice but if people put up with it then buyer beware. Generally when someone bills your card that far in advance, there are underlying factors to the business cash flow that necessitate it. To me its a red flag. My biggest concern would be with that kind of advance billing, you could get stuck with the charge if it didn't get delivered in time. I build custom cars as a hobby. I have seen this happen in a several similarly sized businesses that sold motors and other high end accessories for custom cars. Both times, the companies were around a number of years and had zero problems. They did a lot of business and provided high quality merchandise. Then for one reason or another, they got into a cash flow situation they couldn't get out of. They started using current sales money to pay for orders they had already taken becuase they were behind in their cash flow. In just a matter of weeks, a lot of people lost a lot of money becuase all of the sudden quit shipping anything, even though they continued to take orders. Basically overnight, they suddenly closed up and declared bankruptcy.
The one thing that made me think of it was that was that we had several Internet car forums that were larger than TractorbyNet.com and when it first started happening everyone was defending the vendors because there had been no serious issues in the past. I'd say for a good month or two, people were still defending them on the forum because the vendors were well liked. In fact, one of the vendors was a big financial supporter of the both Forums. They advertised heavily which helped pay the cost of operating both forums for a long time. Anyway, in both cases, the next thing we knew the businesses had shut down and quit returning calls and correspondence. Losses ranged from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands.
The Fair Credit Billing Act allows you to file a dispute with your credit card company for undelivered merchandise, so long as you inform the credit card company within 60 days of the first bill that has the disputed charge on it.
So if the order drags on a couple of extra weeks you can find yourself in a situation where your time to dispute the charge has past and you are out of luck. No matter how great you think a company is doing, you really don't know. If they are charging you 30 days or more before they even ship, then you are taking all the financial risk for them and essentially financing the equipment build or acquisition for them. The one taking a risk in that situation is the consumer. If they decide one day to close up shop suddenly, you can lose your money. Been there, done that, have the T-Shirt.
If it were me, I'd dispute the charge on day 45 if it hasn't arrived and let the credit card company pull the money back until it was ready to ship. That way you have some protection. I imagine the business will fuss saying they have never ever missed a delivery which may or may not be true. You really don't know. And as I mentioned before, even if it is true, when the music suddenly stops in a financial deal like that, the last customers get left holding the bag. They may be great people but it's a risky practice for a consumer to pay that far in advance.
