Debit Card Purchase Blunder (BEWARE)

[Fuzzfas]

To give you an example about how services work and how bureaucracy works even in cases where you can't imagine.

When i first did a contract with my ISP, they were offering ADSLmodem/router on leasing, at 3 euros per month. At the time, such a router was costing much to buy it by your own, so it was OK (or so i thought). At some point, their prices fell sharply. They continued to charge 3 euros per month. After 2 years, i decided to buy a new one, mine, so i didn't have use for theirs anymore. So i called them to ask what i should do to stop paying the 3 euros per month, because now i had my own modem/router. Basically, i had to send it back to a specific city, "in the original package, including the filters, cables, drivers CD and manual". Fortunately, i had all this.

There are thousand of other people, elderly specially, who don't even remember they still pay the 3 euros per month and keep paying them after 6 or more years. Basically by now, they have paid the weight of their obsolete router in gold.

Already in my case, it was ridiculous, to ask me to send them back a used, obsolete device that after 2 years of use was in bad shape and i have paid for 72 euros (3x12x2) in total in the arch of 2 years. In the market, at the time, you could buy a new one, much faster and better for half the price. They should have said "it's yours, keep it". It's of no use to them, the speed is now obsolete and even the cable was a bit torn. But , they do that, exactly to make your life harder, so that you may abbandon the idea of sending it back (you have to send it as package at your own expense) and with the full original accessories (even the used filter!), so that you will continue paying the € 3 per month.

[Fuzzfas]

I remember the first time i went to the bank branch to put money on the card...

The clerks says: "Did you have this card issued in this branch or in another?"

- "In this one".

- "Oh good! Because othwerise things would get complicated".

I mean, it's the same bank. How complicated can it be to manage a card?

[Teknokrat]

Hey!
If it's any comfort, the same thing happened to me (and Mitch solved the problem with the actual purchase very quickly - thanks!), and I think it took like 5-7 days for the money to re-appear on the account. My first attempt to buy FDR failed so I tried another card (which also failed) and I ended up getting things fixed manually by Mitch - but the money had already been withdrawn.

Give it a cpl more days and see what happens - by the time I got my money back I had forgotten about them, so it was a very welcome addition (I'm not rich, you know )

regards,
T

[Fuzzfas]

Originally Posted by Teknokrat

Hey!
If it's any comfort, the same thing happened to me (and Mitch solved the problem with the actual purchase very quickly - thanks!), and I think it took like 5-7 days for the money to re-appear on the account. My first attempt to buy FDR failed so I tried another card (which also failed) and I ended up getting things fixed manually by Mitch - but the money had already been withdrawn.

Give it a cpl more days and see what happens - by the time I got my money back I had forgotten about them, so it was a very welcome addition (I'm not rich, you know )

regards,
T

Thanks, it's what i hope for too. I 'd like to avoid writing letters and waiting for months for ombudsmen and that stuff. I 'd rather forget about it and find my serenity sooner...

Well, if your bank took 7 days to make your money reappear, mine should take 21 days (i have the slight suspicion that my bank is more bureucratic and slow than yours in Sweden ).

In any case, from now on i will only use Paypal or intermediaries which i have already used and know i can trust for hassle-free transaction. I told Mitch that if in the future he intends to add Paypal, he can send me a PM and i will try again.

[Leapfrog Mitch]

The initial problem lies here; "Our credit card handler has security really tight, and we're seeing some orders from overseas failing some verification checks"; so as soon as the handler sees a non-American address, the order falls over.

Subsequent problems were due both to you unfortunately attempting multiple orders and your bank.

Overall, IMHO, Leapfrog need to take a closer look at their ordering procedure for overseas customers.

Just to clarify, the majority of our initial orders were from overseas customers, and we only had several problems with credit cards being rejected because of the bank verification checks. We've made a few adjustments and things are much better now.

P.S. If you're really trying to burn through 2.5 million, might I suggest our Server product at least?

- Mitch / Leapfrog Software

[Fuzzfas]

My money REAPPEARED!!! YESSS!!!!

To be more precise, the 4 charges on my movement's list disappeared and my amount of money went up again! What an idiot bank!

Thank you all!

[ahriman]

Yayyy! Very good news Fuzzfas.
I'm really glad you got it sorted out.

[Fuzzfas]

Originally Posted by ahriman

Yayyy! Very good news Fuzzfas.
I'm really glad you got it sorted out.

Me too! Well, it sorted itself out, since they re-appeared on their own. After... ONLY 10 days!

Well, there was a happy ending and that's more important. But from now on, i learnt my lesson and will be much more careful before buying with this card, specially abroads. Next time i may not be so lucky.

[Teknokrat]

Originally Posted by Fuzzfas

My money REAPPEARED!!! YESSS!!!!

Good to hear that!

[Fuzzfas]

Originally Posted by Teknokrat

Good to hear that!

Yes, me too. It was a variation of your case. Ironically in the past few days, having FD-R would have been very useful to me, after a series of mysterious windows crashes and corruption making windows unbootable that made me restore Macrium images about 10 times and installing/uninstalling drivers like mad. At the end it was a RAM module that was failing... If the purchase of FD-R had succeeded i would have spared myself much time and frustration... There are some periods where all things go in the wrong way...