The last week has been pretty stressful with a lot of business related items and shipping issues to deal with. By Friday most of that had all been resolved. It was beautiful weather, payday and I was looking forward to the weekend. I received a coupon in my email from Barnes & Noble and decided to treat myself to a new book. All seemed well until I received another email from Barnes & Noble telling me my card had been denied. Thinking maybe I had just entered the card number in wrong. You know things like that happen, I called them up and gave my card info to them again. Tad! Resolved. Or so I thought.
Later last night I dropped by the store to pick up a few things, once again using this same card for the purchase. Then the cashiers says, I am sorry ma'am your card has been denied. What the.. Having paid my bills earlier in the day and knowing my personal budget, I am fully aware there is more than enough in my account to cover this purchase. Whatever - I am holding up the line and slightly embarrassed my card was denied. I pay with another card and go on my way.
Highly concerned about the matter I phone the banking establishment today. While on the phone with someone from customer support, who's name I can't pronounce and an accent I barely understand, I am advised due to possible theft of my card info they turned my card off on Thursday. Working in the internet biz I am more than aware of identity theft issues and appreciate any action taken by a company to protect my information as well as my money. However, I never received any sort of notification that they were shutting down my card. At this point I am more than mildly annoyed with the situation. This being because the financial institution I am dealing with does not have a physical branch, in Utah, that I can walk into and withdraw money from my account. I know, my fault, but when your account is linked to your investments and gets a better interest rate you are willing to accept some things. Plus I have never run into this problem before. The customer support representative tells me it will take 7-10 business days to get a new card. Not awesome! Now I am even more inconvenienced.
I ask the representative if there is anyway for them to expedite this card, since I was not informed of the situation on Thursday or else I would have called then, and I would really appreciate access to my money. Granted, I could transfer the money out of that account to my other bank account but that is still going to take 3-5 (usually 5) business days to get, due to banking regulations. The representative says, yes they can send the card Fedex but it will cost me $20. Umm, excuse me? I asked if this can be waived, because once again NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WAS HAPPENING! I am placed on hold so a manager can be asked.
Since people make mistakes, as I mentioned above with my card #, I decided to log into my account while I am on hold and just make sure that I wasn't a flake and missed this "alert" that was sent to me about them shutting down my card. I sign in, check my alerts... and no alert about the card. The representative comes back on the line, lets me know the fee has been waived and I will get another card in a few days. Great! I let the representative know I just double checked my account and there was no alert sent to me. At this point I would have appreciated being told something such as "I am sorry about that, I will be sure to pass that along to my management so it can be looked into". Being realistic I know those statements are made to people who are upset as a way to calm them down and that info is not always passed along. But, I still would have appreciated hearing it and do think an error was made here. I am not destitute until this replacement card arrives, but don't appreciate that I have to use money intended for another purposes because of someone's lack of attention to detail. I can always look on the bright side, that none of my money was fraudulently taken from my account.
Maybe modern conveniences, aren't so convenient after all.
Later last night I dropped by the store to pick up a few things, once again using this same card for the purchase. Then the cashiers says, I am sorry ma'am your card has been denied. What the.. Having paid my bills earlier in the day and knowing my personal budget, I am fully aware there is more than enough in my account to cover this purchase. Whatever - I am holding up the line and slightly embarrassed my card was denied. I pay with another card and go on my way.
Highly concerned about the matter I phone the banking establishment today. While on the phone with someone from customer support, who's name I can't pronounce and an accent I barely understand, I am advised due to possible theft of my card info they turned my card off on Thursday. Working in the internet biz I am more than aware of identity theft issues and appreciate any action taken by a company to protect my information as well as my money. However, I never received any sort of notification that they were shutting down my card. At this point I am more than mildly annoyed with the situation. This being because the financial institution I am dealing with does not have a physical branch, in Utah, that I can walk into and withdraw money from my account. I know, my fault, but when your account is linked to your investments and gets a better interest rate you are willing to accept some things. Plus I have never run into this problem before. The customer support representative tells me it will take 7-10 business days to get a new card. Not awesome! Now I am even more inconvenienced.
I ask the representative if there is anyway for them to expedite this card, since I was not informed of the situation on Thursday or else I would have called then, and I would really appreciate access to my money. Granted, I could transfer the money out of that account to my other bank account but that is still going to take 3-5 (usually 5) business days to get, due to banking regulations. The representative says, yes they can send the card Fedex but it will cost me $20. Umm, excuse me? I asked if this can be waived, because once again NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WAS HAPPENING! I am placed on hold so a manager can be asked.
Since people make mistakes, as I mentioned above with my card #, I decided to log into my account while I am on hold and just make sure that I wasn't a flake and missed this "alert" that was sent to me about them shutting down my card. I sign in, check my alerts... and no alert about the card. The representative comes back on the line, lets me know the fee has been waived and I will get another card in a few days. Great! I let the representative know I just double checked my account and there was no alert sent to me. At this point I would have appreciated being told something such as "I am sorry about that, I will be sure to pass that along to my management so it can be looked into". Being realistic I know those statements are made to people who are upset as a way to calm them down and that info is not always passed along. But, I still would have appreciated hearing it and do think an error was made here. I am not destitute until this replacement card arrives, but don't appreciate that I have to use money intended for another purposes because of someone's lack of attention to detail. I can always look on the bright side, that none of my money was fraudulently taken from my account.
Maybe modern conveniences, aren't so convenient after all.
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