As some of you know, my auctions did very well last week and I had quite a few packages to ship out today before I headed up here to the lake..
Because I knew the postage fee was going to be a hefty one, I decided to wait to "sweep" my account until after I had charged the postage on my Paypal credit/debit card so I could get the 1.5% cash back..
Well - after the woman at the post office (not the regular I usually deal with) weighed and affixed the postage to all of my packages and came up with the grand total (over $50) I handed her my Paypal credit card..
She put it through their machine and - nothing.. Put it through again, still nothing.. As she went to put it thru a 3rd time I questioned if that was a good idea (because she idicated that they had been having problems with their charge machine for at least two days now) and I was concerned with getting multiple charges, but she said it couldn't happen because the "paper" wasn't coming up - nor was an authorization number.. After she tried repeatedly to get the machine to work I told her to forget it and I wrote out a check..
I stopped at K-mart on the way home to grab a few supplies and used the Paypal card with no problem so I figured it was definitely the machine at the Post Office that was on the fritz..
Came home and started throwing things together to come up here to the lake and just had this "gut" feeling I should check my Paypal account before I left..
ALL OF THE MONEY WAS GONE !!!!!!
The charges from the post office were put thru
SEVEN times!!!
I immediatley called the Post Office and they said they would call me right back.. Meanwhile I scurried around and found a number to call Paypal (having already printed out my pathetic statement from on-line).. The guy I spoke to at Paypal was GREAT... He said he could stop 7 of the 8 transactions immediately - but for the last one I would have to have the Post Office fax them the info saying that they were not requesting any money, the date & time of the transaction, my account number, etc.. Unfortunately
that money could not be returned for 48 hours though..
Get off the phone with him, and the Post Office calls (yet another woman).. She says they did a "log" of all the charges that day and there is
NO record of my card being charged!!!! Sorry to say I went ballistic because she was
VERY snotty about it.. She said
if I had proof, I needed to bring it down there and she would "see" if there was anything they "should" do...
I flew out of the house like a
mad woman - armed with my print-outs, my charge card, the phone number from Paypal, and my receipt from the Post Office...
And would you believe she
still gave me a hard time??? She kept looking at 4 of the charges that said "denied" and I couldn't make her understand that they were denied because the
other charges from the PO
had wiped out the account and there wasn't any money there!!!!! Finally I demanded to speak to someone else.. This guy acknowledged that they had been having problems with the machine but he had no idea that the charges were actually going through.. He started to say he would "check into it" and "get back to me on Monday" and I said,
"I don't think so!! This was YOUR error.. I am NOT going to wait 48 hours to have the money back in my account via Paypal and I am NOT going to wait for you to "check into" a problem you have been aware of for at least two days.. I want the check I gave you - and I want it NOW!!"
I think I must have scared the living daylights out of him because I had the check in about 2 seconds flat.. And would you believe they
never even said "I'm sorry" ??????
Went back home - called Paypal - told them to let the ONE charge go thru - checked my balance (A-okay now) - and I finally just arrived here at the lake..
Sooooooo.. the moral of this story is: When you use
any credit card ANYWHERE, if it doesn't go through the
first time
DO NOT LET THEM CONTINUE TO SCAN IT REPEATEDLY - no matter WHAT they tell you!!!
I also overheard one of the other postal clerks saying she had been having problems scanning credit cards ALL DAY - and had to do them repeatedly - so I imagine they are going to have their hands full with some
very irate customers when they go to withdraw money via their debit cards - or charge things - and their accounts are depleted..
I still can't believe it - they didn't even apologize!!!!!!
Hi and WELCOME, Heather! LoL, I wish I had 2 shopping bags full of stuff, anything that hasn't moved in my home has been SOLD!
. We'll see.
