24 January, 2008
The One Where It Could Have Been A Lot Worse
On Monday, I finished off the last two tickets from my 2-week book of ferry tickets, which meant that I had to queue up to buy more tickets Tuesday morning. I saw the line and groaned, silently chastising myself for not taking advantage of the holiday on Monday when the ferry wasn't crowded.
So I finally get up to the register and ask for my usual book of 20 tickets. The deck hand swipes the card. Waits. Nothing. He asks for the card again and gives it another go. Nada. Tries again. We were just at the edge of the Estuary by then so it seemed obvious that we were out of phone signal range but we press on and he swipes it again. Noooooot quite. Finally, fifth try's a charm and out comes the receipt. I sign one copy and stuff the other one in my wallet, take my book of tickets and head back to the upper deck where one of my fellow commuters was watching the rest of my stuff. We were approaching the Bay Bridge, so there wasn't any point in getting comfortable.
Fast forward to around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday evening. I had deposited my medical reimbursement and was going to make a payment on my credit card and nearly swallowed my eyebrows when I looked at my checking account activity and saw FIVE pending charges from Blue and Gold Fleet. For $85 each. I phoned the "customer service" number and, unsurprisingly, spoke to someone who was clearly stationed overseas. I explained what had happened and that only ONE of the charges should count and I could give her the receipt number and all of the other codes on it but please make the others go away, or at least put them on ice until I can sort it out with Blue and Gold. Her solution? Since we couldn't have a conference call with Blue and Gold (being it was 11:00 p.m. at that point), we could just let all five charges go through and file a dispute. In the meantime, $340 of my money is unavailable to me. You can bet if I had deposited a check for $340, they'd put a hold on THAT until the spirit moved them to release the funds to me, but they won't put a hold on $340 of charges that I'm already disputing.
**blink**
**blink**
wanting to say "Oh hai, I have something for you! Here's a big steaming pile of I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO, just for You!"
actually saying "I'm hanging up now."
Wednesday morning, as I waited for the Encinal, I phoned the office at Blue and Gold. I got a really nice gentleman called Aidan on the line and he took down all of the particulars and assured me he'd get the right person to look into it for me. Later in the morning Dolores called and said that their merchant bank only found the one charge to my card. She had me fax over a copy of my transaction history showing all of the pending charges and the receipt. She phoned me later in the afternoon and assured me that there really was only the one charge to my card (note to self: NEVER use the debit card for this stuff! Srsly!) and that the merchant bank said the other four pending charges should be gone by that evening, or the next morning at the latest. I thanked Dolores profusely for all of her help and patience.
I checked my account when I got home from work. The one legitimate charge had gone through but the four pending ones were still there. I sighed and went to bed. At lunchtime today I checked again. They were still there. I called the CS number and navigated my way until I could get to an operator. Except, a couple of steps before I could get to a live person, I was held hostage while they played a frackin' ADVERTISEMENT for their wonderous CD savings products, forcing me to either press 1 to learn more or 2 to continue with my business. I was about 16 different kinds of NOT HAPPY by the time I was allowed to speak to an actual person. I explained that I had talked to the very wonderful people at Blue and Gold and that the one charge that went with my receipt had been processed and that the other ones were not legitimate and their merchant bank said they should have disappeared from my account by now. This person demanded authorization codes for the four bad transactions. And if I wasn't able to get them for her right away? The remaining four charges would post to my account. So, not only are they currently holding $340 of MY money in limbo, they'll just hand it over to Blue and Gold, even though they don't have any authorization codes for THOSE transactions (and they never will because, according to the merchant bank they don't bloody exist!).
I phoned Dolores again and may the blessings of Ceiling Cat be upon her because she said she and her supervisor would look into it for me. A short time later, Arlene from Blue and Gold phoned and said she had talked to a very helpful person named Stacy at my banking institution and that if I go look at my account now all of the charges would be gone. And LO! They were! Arlene apologized profusely for all of the trouble but I kept telling her I was just so grateful that they were so helpful and patient helping me get this resolved. They certainly were more helpful than anyone I got in touch with at my bank. Arlene said they were implementing a new procedure for processing cards, based on this experience.
I was damn lucky. I had received a holiday bonus and I hadn't burned through it so, if I had to, I could have covered any outstanding payments (and don't think it hadn't crossed my mind that the bank stood to gain a lot in overdraft fees if I hadn't been able to cover the payments). A year or two ago, I wouldn't have been so fortunate.
So, once again, Blue and Gold staff rock! Everyone from the office staff to the captains to the deck hands are so friendly and customer-focused that I can't imagine commuting any other way.
Labels: ferry commuting, gah, gratitude, JesusBloodyChrist
~~ victoria on 10:26 PM ~~ 0 comments
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