Sunday, March 17, 2013

Up A Creek, Paddle Available In 10-14 Business Days


I fucking hate people. I've been saving up cash for the past three months. I'm going home next week for my mom's birthday and my cousin's wedding reception. The mother of my child and I are planning on taking our daughter to Disneyland (or World or...I don't know, one of them) this year. I'm going to Vegas in May and, oh yeah, doing something for my birthday too. Keeping all of that in mind, I've kept a very close eye on my expenses since the year turned over. Last week was a very good one since I closed out a project and got paid for it much sooner than expected. Today I bought a few things for my trip and consciously used a different card than I usually do so I wouldn't dip into my savings. Imagine my shock when I get an alert on my phone at 1:03AM saying I'd just spent $699 on...well, I'm not sure what it was spent on actually. Probably because I wasn't the one who spent it. Livid, I took to the interwebs to find out what the hell this company does and I'm still not sure. It seems to be some kind of internet company. I've never heard of it and I'm not sure how they got my card information. I called the bank but they're closed until 8AM tomorrow. Of course this had to happen on a Saturday night. Because that's just my luck. I called the company itself and left a message (with an actual person) about what was going on. I'm sure they won't get back to me until Monday. But I'm still pissed off. That wiped out my entire account. I have $3 to my name at the moment. I've had a disputed charge with my bank before and, if I remember correctly (which is always a crapshoot), they put the money back in my account while they investigated things. They cancelled my card and sent out a new one and things all worked out fine. But that was a much smaller charge. And I would've been out that money for a month if they hadn't comped it to me since that's how long it took to close the investigation. I cannot be out $700 for a month. I can't be out that for a few days. How the hell am I supposed to travel on $3? Fuck.

UPDATE: So I got up at almost the crack of dawn to call the bank and dispute the charges. The call was good and bad. The bad news is that they cannot officially open the dispute until the company completes the charge (it's only a pending charge at the moment), which could take 3-5 days. Great. Then, the lady tells me that she'll need to cancel my card. I expected this but was hoping to wait so I could at least transfer any cash I do get back to another account, or even withdraw it so I wouldn't be screwed until a new card arrived. No dice, she couldn't not cancel the card. The good news is that 48 hours after the claim is officially opened, they will refund the money back to my account. While I'm relieved about that, I'm still screwed in the meantime. It usually takes my bank the full five days to complete anything. If a company I buy from puts a temporary hold on my card for any amount it doesn't fall off for at least five days. If that remains the rule, it will be next Saturday before the charge completes. I assume the bank won't process the dispute until the following Monday, meaning I won't get the money back until Wednesday at the earliest. Even when that happens, I will have no way to access it since my card will likely take the full 10 business days to arrive. So basically, I have zero funds until April. Awesome.