Polly Esther wrote:

If you do online shopping, pay very close attention to your bill. I just
took a hit for $1,200 worth of software. ........ Fortunately, my nice
credit card company also knew that such a purchase was highly unlikely and
slammed the credit card account shut. ....... Polly


This reminded me about something similar that happened to me when my
DBro passed away in Los Angeles four ago on Valentines Day. My DSis
Betsy (who lives in Austin, TX) and I (I'm in No. GA) went to take care
of "things" since Papa wasn't up to it. We made arrangements for Mike's
cremation using an old friend of his who happened to run his own
mortuary. Betsy drove to downtown L.A. (we were staying with cousins in
Anaheim) to take care of paperwork while I dealt with phone calls, etc.
I gave Betsy my AmEx card number since the receptionist at the
mortuary had told me on the phone that they took AmEx (frequent flyer
miles and all that -- LOL). When Betsy got there, Mike's friend told
her that they didn't take AmEx so she phoned me and I gave her my
MasterCard number. I get another call from Betsy a few minutes later
telling me that the MC number won't go through and the mortuary guy had
even personally phoned the charge request in after trying --
unsuccessfully -- to swipe the card several times! I told him there was
NO balance on the card so it should have been OK and said I would
contact MC first thing the next morning because by now their offices
were closed.
I called MC first thing the next morning -- early because we were
leaving town ASAP to drive back to Lizard Land. I finally managed to
get a live person on the phone -- even one who spoke English as his
native language!! Seems that they had not honored the original request
AND put a hold on my account because it seemed like a strange purchase
by me. I assured the guy that I was me (I answered all those odd
questions correctly) and I was trying to pay to have my recently DEAD
DBro cremated!!! The poor guy at MC was tripping over his words
apologizing to me and telling me that trying to charge bogus funeral
stuff was not unusual for LaLa Land. He also said he would honor the
original charge request and reactivate my card so that I could use it if
need be whilst driving across the lovely SoCal/AZ desert 8-P******.
I told the poor young man that I understood, didn't blame anyone for
the SNAFU and made mention of the fact that I was sure Mike was having a
good laugh over the whole thing from wherever "he" happened to be at
that time :-)! CiaoMeow ^;;^

PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^ (RCTQ Queen of Kitties)
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about
their whiskers!
Visit my Photo albums at http://community.webshots.com/user/tiamary