Credit Limit

I spent $20, 227.09 today. And, no, I didn’t buy a car or a timeshare or a home theater system. I bought one month of voicemail service.

Here’s my sad story. I went online yesterday to pay my monthly bill for my voicemail service. I need a separate number from my home number, which is unlisted so as to discourage stalkers. Why anyone would want to stalk me is a question as puzzling as why people worship Paris Hilton, but I have in fact been the target of two stalkers in my lifetime.  Yes, TWO, not counting the gentleman who kept e-mailing me and telling me what he liked to do while gazing at my photo. He even gave me his cell phone number in case I wanted to meet up, which was, obviously, not likely. Excuse me while I go wash my hands.

As I was saying, I use voicemail to take messages so that I don’t have to give out my number. I am on a month-by-month deal, so I went online to pay my $20.27 bill for July. I filled out all the blanks on the form, including my credit card number and security code. I hit ‘submit’ and instead of getting a receipt, I received a message that the company was unable to make transactions at the moment, but that my information had been captured. They would process my payment and send a receipt to the address provided. I heard a giant sucking sound as my private financial information was relayed through the ether to who knows where.

My fear was not unfounded. My credit card ended up on the desk of a completely fallible human being by the name of Christina who called this morning, confessing that she had made a mistake in entering my payment amount. They had accidentally charged me not $20.27, but $20,277 and change. While I was picturing what Christina had eaten for breakfast that made her fingers stick to the keyboard like that, she rushed to assure me that, while the transaction had gone through, they were ‘not taking the money.’”

“Excuse me?” I said. “What does that mean, exactly? Did you give the money to charity or are you sending me a refund check, or…”

She tried again, with a little giggle. “Well, we are human and we do make mistakes but we caught it in time. I just wanted you to know because your bank may put a hold on your card.”

“Well, that is a problem, Christina, because I might need to buy a plane ticket to Alabama or wherever the hell you’re calling from so that I can hunt you down and strangle you with your computer cable. What is your phone number?” She told me, because customer service reps are not allowed to be unlisted, although they can use pseudonyms. Christina’s real name, I’m guessing, is something like Brandi with an ‘i.’

I called my bank and discovered that the twenty thousand dollar charge was pending and there was no credit issued by the voicemail company to offset it. The good folks at Visa said there is no such thing as “not taking the money.” Christina, if that is her real name, would have to issue a corresponding credit because once a charge was submitted, there was no other way to cancel it out. Once you hit ‘enter’ it’s just like firing a gun. There’s no taking it back. And saying it was human error doesn’t really make it better when your credit card is hemorrhaging or you have a gaping chest wound spurting blood.

I called “Christina” back and she said she was working on issuing a credit. She would call me back in a few minutes. I went out to get an iced tea to calm my nerves. While I was out, Christine left me a voicemail. “We think we figured it out,” she said, so you should be okay. And, by the way, thanks for signing up for our automatic payment plan. We’ll be billing your credit card on the 1st of every month.. Have a nice day!”