I check my credit card charges pretty regularly. There are times when I've thought that it was unnecessary and perhaps even paranoid, because month after month, year after year, there were no problems. And I got used to using my credit card...an Amazon affiliated card... for just about everything, so there were a lot of charges. But I still kept checking.
And then a few months ago I saw a small charge...$1.99...and I couldn't remember ordering anything that corresponded to that amount and the date noted. The description line didn't give me any useful information, either. So, feeling a bit of chagrin, I called the Amazon help number. I got bounced around a bit. Finally I was told that this was a pre-charge that had been applied because my Amazon Prime was about to renew. So that was that.
Until the next month, when a charge for $12.99 showed up. Same suspicious circumstances. I called again. Again I had to go through several different people. I finally got to a supervisor. And again I was told that this was a pre-charge thing. I told this knowledgeable-sounding fellow what had happened previously, and he assured me that everything was copacetic, that I didn't need to worry.
Until the next month, when another charge for $12.99 showed up. Same suspicious circumstances. I called yet again. Again I had to go through several different people. And again I was told that this was a pre-charge thing. I said that it was not. I had to speak to someone else. I asked everyone I talked to (at least a half-dozen people) if they could give me any further information about the charge...WHO charged this on my card and Amazon account, for instance. They told me that they couldn't. Which baffled me. I mean...it was my card and my account, for fuck's sake. Finally I talked to a guy who told me the first and last letter of the first name on the charge...which clearly showed that he had the name right in front of him. I told him I didn't know anybody whose name corresponded to those letters. But he still wouldn't give me any more information.
So I called my credit card company and cancelled the card, of course, but I continued to ask Amazon for information about the erroneous charges. They ignored my email, and when I did a Live Chat (I try not to call, as it is extremely difficult to understand what many of the phone folks are saying, either because of bad connections or heavily accented English) I was assured that I would get information about this in a few days via email. And sure enough, I did get an email a few days later. It told me that Amazon couldn't give me any information.
So...I still have an Amazon account, but I don't have a credit card associated with it anymore, and I haven't made any purchases in the past three months. I'm thinking I might be done with them. Not because of the bogus charges...which were pretty small...but because of the run around they gave me...and the lack of information on this thing.
I've been buying books from other online sources (which allow you to use PayPal) and I haven't been buying comic books at all, I'm sorry to say. (Though I have read quite a few free from the public library.) I bought some clothing from Walmart. I bought a couple of pieces of furniture from Wayfair. (PayPal, PayPal.) All of that stuff would have come from Amazon before. I've spent thousands of dollars there over the years. Probably tens of thousands of dollars. (Hell, I'm on my sixth Kindle!) But now....
Anyway. The moral of the story is Check Your Credit Card Charges. And don't trust the people who assure you that everything is alright if you suspicion that it is not. Keep asking to speak to a manager higher up the chain. Although that didn't really work out for me, did it?
Sigh.
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