Just got home, and checked my email. In it is a notice from Amazon that my payment (I ordered some stuff for my son's birthday this morning) has been declined.

I go to check my bank account to discover that I'm 400 dollars overdrawn.

As my jaw is hitting the floor, I get a call from "RISK MANAGEMENT," which is the credit card company watchdog calling to verify some suspicious transactions from Sweden.

Apparently, one of the Amazon marketplace vendors must have been hacked, and now my fucking account is wiped out and my card is canceled. Tomorrow, I have to call the bank to dispute the charges.

I just hope they are reasonable. I haven't had much luck with them of late.

I have always been careful with online payments, and I've never had shit like this happen before. I'm mad at myself for expecting more from the fucktards who sell through Amazon.

Wow. Never again.

It won't affect the kiddo's birthday plans will it?

That sucks man, I'm sure the bank will be reasonable. Just repeat after me, "Let me speak to your supervisor."

oh that blows. have you thought about hunting the fuckwads down and killing them?

Originally posted by mosquito

oh that blows. have you thought about hunting the fuckwads down and killing them?

That's all I'm thinking about.

I'm on live chat with some Amazon flak named "Naveen" right now. He could give two shits that my account has been wiped out. He's trying to figure out how to complete my order.

"Please do not worry at tall, Our secure server software (SSL) is the industry standard and among the best software available today for secure commerce transactions. It encrypts all of your personal information--including credit or debit card number, name and address--so it can't be read as the information travels over the internet. All of our credit and debit card information is stored on a secure, dedicated database."

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Originally posted by persist

It won't affect the kiddo's birthday plans will it?

Depends on whether I get justice from the bank.

Accoding to my account, all of these transactions are listed as "pending." So I would expect they should be able to decline them. However, in my experience, they just use the "pending" status as a means of waiting until other payments come in so that they can maximize overdraft charges.

I fucking HATE banks.

Originally posted by AgentX

However, in my experience, they just use the "pending" status as a means of waiting until other payments come in so that they can maximize overdraft charges.

i've even seen multiple documentaries on that exact topic.

that blows though. and you ordered through amazon and this happened?

Yeah.

I got a bunch of stuff, through Amazon and Amazon marketplace vendors. They split it into three orders, two and a half of them cleared.

According to Naveen, there is "no way" for this to happen. But the rest of my transactions have been through card swipes, or have been bill payments through gateways I've been using for years.

I'm pretty certain it was their leak. The charges were incremental, from $4 to $44, to $350, to $1,050. All today, all after the Amazon payments came in.

Naveen from Amazon: "rest assured, I'm going to do all that to pass this to the concerned department to fasten the process and the concerned department will get back to you within 2-3 business days.21:14:47 Naveen:Please allow this time for us to sort this out."

FUCK YOU. I SOMEHOW DON'T THINK I'M GOING TO "REST ASSURED."

I'm really pissed off.

Talk to your credit provider and find out exactly what their chargeback policy is. I would be VERY surprised if you're legally on the hook.

Originally posted by AgentX

I fucking HATE banks.

me too. especially citi, chase (amazon), and b of a.

good luck. tell the kid happy birthday.

Aw geez! What a crap thing to happen in time for the boy's birthday!

< anecdotal >

Something similar happened to me a while back. According to my bank statement, I was flying Ryan Air all over Europe. When I went to the bank and explained the situation in person, the manager immediately removed the charges. The reasoning he gave is that the bank itself is not liable for the charges and is therefore perfectly happy throw them back on the credit card company - especially considering that it is the credit card's responsibility to verify purchases, not the bank's.

< /anecdotal >

The kid's birthday is still about 3 weeks away. His older brother comes 2 weeks after that.

I was trying to stay ahead of the curve and allow for shipping.

Fuck.

Even if I can get the bank to ditch the $1475.81 in charges tomorrow, I'm still fucked. I have checks out on my balance, and they're going to shut off my cell phone tomorrow, which means my two youngest will also have no phone.

FUCK FUCK FUCK.

That sucks, AX. I hope it works out to some degree. I'm with you on the bank hate.

The phone thing just hit me. I rely on the family phone network to coordinate our insane family activities. ARGH.

call them all. get the bank in touch with them if possible. They will figure it out and they will try to help you best they can.

sucks

:(

Dude, I don't know what to say. That's a serious, ball-twisting bummer.

That sucks.

I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago, but because it was my VISA card, everything was sorted the next day. Yes, I know that is not very helpful.

I hope Naveen gets horribly disfigured in a freak napalm strike and a fire burns down your bank and kills everyone inside.

Ouch, shitty.

I've had a couple of fairly minor, similar occurrences and have been fortunate that my bank has been very supportive -- I just reported them, they checked them out and refunded the money pretty quickly. Then again they weren't severe enough to put me into the red and bring on all the secondary crap you're experiencing.

Hope it all works out in time for the kiddos' birthdays.

I'm hoping the phone stays on long enough to allow me to talk to the bank.

I just have to wait until they open.

That sucks donkey balls.

And phoning a bank is never fun.

Originally posted by scudsucker

That sucks donkey balls.

And phoning a bank is never fun.

QFAT

Quoted for absolute truth.

Just spoke to the bank. It was everything I ever thought it would be.

Because the charges are still "pending," there is nothing they can do. They've gone through approval, they just need to post. They expect that will happen on Monday.

Once they post, then I can physically go to the bank and fill out the forms I need to in order to dispute the charges. Then I just have to wait 10 business days in order for them to process the dispute and decide if they can return my money.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK