Saturday evening I received four messages from our credit card company with the subject line
Action Needed: Please confirm you made these purchases
I logged onto our account to see if there was anything fishy there, and there was one item to Blizzard Entertainment (a video game developer and publisher) for $59.99 that wasn’t ours, so I phoned the card company. The emails weren’t spam, the card company had sent them out because there were a number of other attempted charges of $57.28 for Blizzard Entertainment that the company had declined until we either authorized them or else told the company to cancel the card. We canceled the card.
We also checked to see if there were other suspicious changes. Well, sort of. There was one from Subway for $57.42 for October 27. We had gone there and paid by credit card, but the amount was way too high. We had also gone there the next day, ordered essentially the same things, and paid by cash because their credit card machine wasn’t working. Andy remembered the exact amount — $27.35. Oh, oh, we hadn’t checked the receipt at the time and certainly hadn’t saved it, but we figured we should probably tell someone even if we didn’t get any money back.
I phoned about four or five times the next day but the line was always busy, so I looked online for a way to contact someone. I found the national website and wrote them,
We were overcharged! We just now noticed we were charged $57.42 for our order on October 27. We ordered essentially the same thing the next day and had to pay cash for our $27.35 order. We were told the credit card machine wasn’t working, is that why the gross (about $30!) overcharge the previous day? We go there every time my family comes to visit and didn’t check or save the receipt because we’ve never had any problem before. We used a Visa card. Could you please correct this mistake? We do like your store and want to keep having good feelings about it.
Thank you for any help you can give us.
So either something would happen or it wouldn’t, we had done our part.
And today I had this message on our answering machine when I got back from Silver Sneakers,
I couldn’t understand the number she asked me to phone, so I recorded it on my iPod touch and took it down to the local store. They listened to it and paid me the $30. Since they hadn’t phoned her to get permission, I did get her number from them to let her know and to make sure she was okay with it. Yes, she was happy it was settled and apologized again.
It was a fairly trivial affair but thanks to modern technology — the internet and my iPod touch — it was a satisfying adventure in problem solving. As the saying goes,
You don’t have to leave home to have an adventure!
November 6, 2018
efficiency on all sides – good that you are not “down many $$” in the end… yes technology can very good but only if you have people who are like watch dogs …
We were really impressed by our credit card company. That means a lot.
I’m glad it’s going to work out for everyone. a good learning moment for them and a refund for you. mistakes do happen!
I’m also one for not even looking at my receipt! not a good habit to have. 🙂
We will check in the future, but probably not save them?
That was a very strange thing to have happen. We would think they would want to be looking at their employee. Mom and Dad had a credit card issue a couple of years ago. They received three separate packages, each containing some very expensive parts for a BMW vehicle. The credit card company called questioning those purchases as well as a few other smaller ones like from a coffee shop charge for under $5 at a hotel in NYC. The card was immediately cancelled. Mom tried to reach out to the places from which the items originated to see if she could return the items, but they never returned her calls, and she called multiple times. The boxes have been sitting in our garage ever since. Now if only we had a BMW:)
Woos – Lightning, Misty, and Timber
That’s strange that you actually received something, and that you couldn’t give it back! We had someone recharge their Starbuck’s card once, for $100. We had to cancel the card and get a new one then, too.
Our credit card security is really good too. So good that when I was out of state on a Friday evening just before Christmas when my iPad broke I had to jump through hoops to buy a new one. Well worth doing for all the other times it wasn’t me they stopped from buying.
We seldom travel, but when we do we phone our credit card company to tell them. I don’t know if it really helps, but we still think it’s a good idea.
I’m glad yours is careful too, even though it was a pain that time!