Online Transactions

I've been a big fan of the online financial transactions. Until today. I did a quick check of our accounts and noted that for some reason, our last credit card payment, which incidentally had paid off the account, had been "reversed" a.k.a. "returned".

I called the credit card company, explained the situation, mentioned that I had just signed up for the payment service, perhaps there was a problem there. They, said "no", and told me that I had to call my bank. (One and the same company by the way.) But first, he tried to sell me account "insurance". Yeah, something just went wrong with a transaction and you want me to BUY something from you idiots.

I called the bank number and explained the situation. They told me I had to speak to an online account specialist and I was transferred once again. Umm, if you have to speak to a different department regarding online transactions, why do they post the standard number on the webpage? The woman I finally got there told me there was nothing wrong with our account (i.e., plenty of cash) and she had no record of the transaction at all. She then said I needed to speak to the credit card company--back to the very beginning--however, she was able to transfer me directly to "collections".

After 10 minutes on hold, I got another guy who asked if I'd spoken to my bank. I think I deserve massive credit for not screaming obscenities into the phone at this point. He pulled up the transaction histories and asked me to confirm the account number from which the cash was to be drawn. I had dropped a digit in the middle of the account number when I entered it. It took all of 15 seconds for him to discover and fix the problem after I'd spoken with 4 separate people over the course of 30 minutes.

Thank God I wasn't making a last minute payment for which I would have been charged for missing it.