WARNING: Disney Vacation Account took money without permission

[CinderElsa]

Did this end up costing you a trip?
Did this end up costing you money?
Did they take care of you in the end?
Do you even use the DVA?

When I first had a problem I called them and they assured me it would be taken care of. A few days later, the system had the down-notice, and a couple days later I got email explanations that it was going to be a longer outage. That is the way to handle it. I don't expect they'd take the system down for what might be a one-off problem. This is the classic lose-lose. If you leave it up, ppl will complain that you didn't take it down, but if you take it down ppl will complain that you took it down. IT work is that way. Really, it's a balancing act. You have to weigh if it's something you can fix quickly, and assess your risks (Disney's risks) to not taking the system down. When the risks are too great, you take it down. This is exactly what they did. They tried to resolve the one-off instances, until it got too widespread, then they took it down. When they knew it would take more than a day or two to fix, they emailed the customers.

In the end, as I said, they righted everything, at their own expense, and it was no skin off my back. This customer was well taken care of. If you had a different experience, like, if say you lost money in the system and they are refusing to right it, that would change my opinion. But you haven't said that happened.

As to your expectation of complete transparency from Disney... business doesn't work that way. Every company will (and should) try to minimize the perception of down-time or risk as much as possible. All other companies that were subject to hacking attacks only go public w it when it's too late. Disney was pretty proactive here. At least to me. I never felt like my money was at risk. No moreso than it being in any other bank.

Now, my $180 in bonus gift cards are happily on order. This will pay for a dinner in December!

What do you think there are more of in the world: Verizon cell phones or Disney Vacation Accounts?

Verizon had a similar glitch and notified customers within hours. The charges were reversed the same day. That's good customer service!

If you think this situation was handled appropriately, well... I hope your IT position isn't with any other financial institutions!

 

[Jing]

There should have been some kind of announcement as soon as people had money withdrawn incorrectly. It could have been a noncommittal Tweet saying there is a glitch and while the cause is being determined, the site will be unavailable. Personalized emails to affected account holders could have also been sent within hours. That would have been enough acknowledgement to quell the negativity and ensuing account closures/withdrawals. It's less about what did happen and more about uncertainty going forward; a near-miss Does not equal a good outcome.

That said, I am keeping my account for the time being since it is still the best way to combine GCs and get a little return on the investment. I am just altering the timing of deposits and payments so the money is not in there longer than it has to be.

 

[Rhetts1stWDW]

I have to agree. Reading these posts and keeping up with the situation as it was unfolding, no it was not handled well. If I had no access, no phone support, no communication for a week I would have been a ball of stress. That's my money their holding hostage.

 

[Marionnette]

Did this end up costing you a trip?
Did this end up costing you money?
Did they take care of you in the end?
Do you even use the DVA?

Did you read this thread?

People wanted to book trips but could not get their account number because the phone CMs had no way to access that info.

I did not received any communication from the DVA people until the website had been down for a full week. The only "notification" from them was through their webpage, which only stated that they were down for maintenance. If a big bank acted in this manner, I would hold them accountable for their lack of customer service skills.

I am STILL waiting on confirmation that my request for a refund has been received, let alone processed. So, no, they have not taken care of me in the end.

Their lack of concern for their customers has been abysmal in this situation.

 

[jenny105]

Anytime I try to use a DVA account or a gift card to apply payment online for my Disney bookings, it gives me an error message. I have no idea why, but when I call in, they are able to process it just fine. Give Disney a call.

I've never had an issue before but I'll try calling Disney. Thanks!

 

[myminnieme]

Good lord. DVA just charged me twice- once for the right amount, and once for an old amount. Not a problem necessarily because I need to pay more than I have it set up for, but yeesh! Let's get it together Disney!

 

[CinderElsa]

Good lord. DVA just charged me twice- once for the right amount, and once for an old amount. Not a problem necessarily because I need to pay more than I have it set up for, but yeesh! Let's get it together Disney!

Again?! I'm sooo glad I closed my account.

 

[myminnieme]

Again?! I'm sooo glad I closed my account.

Yeah... Something must have happened with their update that uncancelled the old amount, so I had to stop the automatic payments on that account.

 

[jenny105]

Glad I stopped auto payments on DVA. I've just been doing one time payments since all this went down.

 

[Kalliope]

Good lord. DVA just charged me twice- once for the right amount, and once for an old amount. Not a problem necessarily because I need to pay more than I have it set up for, but yeesh! Let's get it together Disney!

What?! Again?!! Unbelievable.

 

[tup1830]

Its down again ...won't let me log in for my own security

 

[jenny105]

I logged in to request my bonus gift cards. I got a message saying it was processing but no confirmation email, nothing. Not really trusting that!

 

[themommy]

I logged in to request my bonus gift cards. I got a message saying it was processing but no confirmation email, nothing. Not really trusting that!

I requested mine the other day and got the same but, I did not expect anything. I did this for our trip last December and never got a confirmation either. However, I did get my gift card.

 

[jenny105]

I requested mine the other day and got the same but, I did not expect anything. I did this for our trip last December and never got a confirmation either. However, I did get my gift card.

Thank you for reassuring me. I didn't expect anything either but given the recent problems it would have been nice!

 

[nenis]

So I am looking to open a DVA account when I stumbled across this thread. I am a bit hesitant now. Was this issue ever resolved? did you guys keep your account?

 

[RickFreeze]

So I am looking to open a DVA account when I stumbled across this thread. I am a bit hesitant now. Was this issue ever resolved? did you guys keep your account?

This was a one time issue, Disney recognized the error and quickly took care of all issues, including the overdraft fees I was charged due to this error. I have my account, even recently increased the amount going into it biweekly.

 

[themommy]

So I am looking to open a DVA account when I stumbled across this thread. I am a bit hesitant now. Was this issue ever resolved? did you guys keep your account?

Yes it was resolved. I must say that they handled it in the worst way possible. I kept my account but, I don't have it set up to take money from an account for deposit. I put money in myself as "one time deposits".