In the End, It's a Wash

Over the weekend, we had a minor financial drama. Nicely we seem to have sorted it all out yesterday.

Ace had ordered something from a website and they included 10 free days of looking at their website (something he wasn't interested in). He e-mailed them a few hours after midnight on day 11, but they don't actually charge you for access until day 12 (in case you take a little extra time to remember to cancel). So, no big deal, right?

Wrong. They charged us for the next month. Ace responded telling them that he canceled and they needed to refund our money. The next invoice from them showed them refunding the money, but then taking it back out again. Ace e-mailed again, telling them that they weren't supposed to re-charge it, just to submit the refund and someone needs to be trained.

They e-mailed back that the charge had been voided, but our bank showed that they had charged us twice. So, we decided to ask our bank if we could dispute the charges. We could, if they all go through (they were pending at the time). Ace called this company 3 times before finally talking with the guy who sent the last e-mail (he didn't call back after the first time because he thought the e-mail had answered everything... except Ace called the first time after getting the e-mail). That guy didn't seem to understand why Ace was frustrated and stressed about the whole thing (he also claimed that the entire financial department had the day off, so I'm not sure he was all that honest).

Ace finally talked to someone higher up, who promised to call back within 30 minutes after finding out what he needed to do to fix the problem. He actually did call back before the 30 minutes were out. While he gave a slightly confusing message, he does seem to have fixed the problem since we've only seen their name pop up with one charge and one refund on our online bank statement.

So, yesterday was a bit more stressful than it needed to be (for other reasons as well, but I'm not ready to talk about those yet... they are still up in the air right now). But in the end, everything seems to have been worked out for the best. Or at least it was a wash, and I can live with that.