Online Purchase Meet Mr. Credit Card

Thanks to a nice little tax refund, we decided to buy a new digital video camera. (We bought one in 2002 and it just died in late 2003 . . . right before Aurora was born, naturally. So I have about 6 tapes full of "stock footage" of Disneyland [my hobby!] and none of my kid.)

Being the savvy electronics consumer I am, I did my shopping/pricing online. We selected one, we played with it at Best Buy, and then I ordered it online from a brick-and-mortar camera shop in New York City that retails online. That was Monday. I saw a confirmation e-mail in my inbox ("Your Order Number Is BlahBlahBlah") but didn't bother opening it (I had it sent to my "junk" Yahoo account, the one I use for all online orders, lest my real addy become spam fodder.) Today, Wednesday, I decided to read it and see if it had a shipping tracking number or something.

Instead, I was nonplussed to see it was actually a "random verification" requiring me to call the New York store to confirm my order. I did.

I was informed that my credit card number did not match the billing address I provided. He had me repeat my address, and informed me that no, it did not match. Funny, in the 19 months we've lived at this address, we've gotten 19 monthly statements and made many credit card purchases without incident . . .

Then he transferred me. Ha ha! OF COURSE HE TRANSFERRED ME . . .

The second guy was almost a little too helpful. He had me repeat my address, informed me that it didn't seem to match, but it must be a "a computer error," he was correcting it right now, and the camera would ship today, and he'd call if there were any more problems.

Frankly, my instinct tells me THEY screwed up and were just CTA, because it was resolved without my slagging through a mountain of bull$h!t. Ah well, I'll take it.