Credit Card Frustrations
Back in September, my husband and I bought tickets for the zoo via a mail order agency that his company gets discounted tickets through. I guess I never realized this until yesterday, but they mailed out the tickets and neglected to charge us for them. That was, until a few days ago.
I check my accounts through Yodlee frequently (ok, daily) and saw a charge I did not recognize for $34.50. It was labeled PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATI (DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT). Now, I don’ t know about you all, but I use my credit cards a lot for daily purchases, especially this time of year with Christmas shopping. While I’m usually really good about being able to identify everything on my statement, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the heck Philadelphia Association was. I searched online, trying to see if I could find out what company this was or if this was a fraudulent charge showing up on other people’s credit cards. Many companies have some version of “Philadelphia Association” in their names that I couldn’t narrow it down by that and it’s so generic, I couldn’t find anything referencing fraud.
I called up Chase, my credit card company, to ask if they had any details. I have to wade through their automated system first. One of the options was that I was calling up about an unrecognized charge. Perfect! I’m not disputing anything because I don’t know what it is, right? I just want more details so I choose that selection. The automated recording goes on to say that many companies use other names or 3rd party companies to perform their credit card transactions and just because I may not recognize the name, if the amount and date look right, that’s my verification. Then it told me to press a key to go to the previous menu. That’s it. Great help they are, huh? I hit 0. At least that got me to a person.
I explain my dilemma and the person tells me they have no details on the transaction. What? How can they have no details on the transaction? Reluctantly, she tells me it’s a ticketing association. Ok. More details, please? I get put on hold and later she comes back to tell me the name is actually Philadelphia Press Association, Haddon Heights, no state and she has a phone number. I recognize Haddon Heights as being in NJ and these details were key in me figuring out that this was a 3 month old transaction.
Banks append check images to descriptions on their website. I don’t understand why the details of the transaction can’t be appended, as well. I don’t get check images with my bank statement so this is a self-service feature available through the website. Why can’t this be extended to cover other transactions at credit cards and banks? I would have saved my time and customer service’s time. People would be able to verify transactions better and maybe this would prevent some unnecessary disputes.
Also, I don’t understand why customer service’s first response was to tell me “Sorry, no details available.” Shouldn’t the credit card company want to avoid my disputing a purchase and want to provide me more details?
In the next week, I will post a wish list of things that I can only dream of credit card companies offering. This is just one of them. I’m sure a lot of my wishes are shared among many others so make sure to check back here for my list. In the meantime, your tasks, should you choose to accept them, are to give me your wishes for credit card companies and to tell me any credit card or bank disputing experiences you’ve had.
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