Sometimes it's painful to do Online/Digital buisness

[weq92f]

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Thursday evening I decided to get back to reading and this time I selected a classic series I enjoyed while it was being published some time ago. Hit AMZN and purchased the 7 dollar book #1 just as I always had and was off to my digital abyss somewhere far, far away.

Friday morning I resume my pleasurable experience over coffee clicking through page after page until I get a message at bottom of the Online e-book reader that said --END OF SAMPLE--. This marked the beginning of the making of a mess that's still not cleaned up as of today (Monday).

So...I went back through the steps of purchasing again after having found no indication that I actually had bought the thing in the first place. Again AMZN reported all clear and happy, wishing me a fine journey down my book reading experience but, no. I tried this a few more times thinking I'd just missed something, that this was operator error. No dice!

I'm a troubleshooter after all and so I eventually find Amazon emails in my junk folder corresponding to these failed purchases. I click on the "fix it" link in the latest one and find that it wants me to fix my CC. I look at it, all is well, nothing out of place, click Save and the button after that indicating make the purchase. I get the same screen again thanking me for my purchase but just as before, no content and no charge. The email came saying I needed to fix it with a valid/current CC. Round and round we go right? After deleting and adding fresh my valid/current, bank-attached, Visa Debit card I get the exact same results trying to purchase that book.

On Saturday morning I contacted the bank's telephone support. I quickly navigated the menu and found myself talking to an American in the state of Maine. She noted each of the attempts AMZN made to acquire funds and that they all were rejected because the EXP DATE was not correct. Through her channels, she confirmed the card was fine and should not get declined.

I created a new AMZN account with alternate email, added my CC and attempted 3 different times to purchase a 10 dollar AMZN gift card with the same results. At this point I contacted AMZN support...

Definitely not American and most certainly not in America. English skills were OK.

They didn't understand the problem at all, mostly because this doesn't fit into their standard mold of a problem. It took me over an hour to get past the first girl. She just couldn't grasp that she didn't have the tools to help me. I had to plead with her and reassure her that this wasn't a failure and nobody should be casting doubt on her because she had to send this to the next higher level. She did. The next person seemed to get what I was saying and connected with the internal Card Services folk who after another half hour or so told him it's a bug on my account and they've fixed it but it would take 24 hours for the fix to go in. OK fine! Thank you. bye. bye. Don't know yet whether that particular "fix" is a good one or not because D'oh.

I remove all CC from both accounts and logged out. Went over to BN.com and withing 10 minutes was continuing my reading pleasure ---on a different platform though

Flash to this morning and me getting back to my emails. I find a bunch of new emails from AMZN complaining about my CC again for these ghost purchases out there. With that, I decide to go cleanup my AMZN account and to my astonishment discovered I could do NOTHING to any of the over 20 outstanding purchase requests for the same title and 3 gift cards! The only option I have is to pay for them. No cancel or revert or delete available. Back on the phone with AMZN's crack support I go...

Again, the first person did not understand the problem at all. She spoke OK, a little fast perhaps but understandable and she really wanted to help. I described things to her and she seemed to catch it but kept going back to just enter a CC and then I'll refund you. My contention was that nope, there's been no charge for all these items, yet, and if I do purchase all of that, AMZN is unlikely to refund because it's all digital content. No I want to be free to add a CC and not worry about all these purchases, these redundant purchases of the same thing to charge against my funds. Over an hour of her trying what she referred to as her "helps" she told me she had exhausted everything the only solution she could suggest was close the account or purchase these items and then refund....this illustrates the whole doesn't-fit-my-mold-of-a-problem. That's just not acceptable.

I asked her very gently to move this issue to the next level and she all of a sudden had another idea she could try and so ...on hold again... and nope, that's not going to help. So I ask again to escalate and she starts pleading with me to allow her to try again. Very gently I let her know that there's no shame in not being able to solve my problem. No shame and I was honored by her great effort so far but it's time to move on. In a dejected tone of voice she told me I'd be transferred to her supervisor...

And...I'm explaining myself and AMZN's bug and my problem again. He understood and after a while he told me that the these rogue orders will need to timeout and go away on their own and to definitely not add a CC until that happens. Asked how long that might take he told me a week minimum. Right. Right.

Sunday evening I ventured out and the first use of my CC was declined! The bank, for my financial protection you understand, declined the purchase due to fraud risk! It was basically harmless as I was able to fix that with a text message but no, they're not protecting me, they're protecting themselves.

-Kevin