On Friday, September 29, 2006, I placed an order for three items from MERCHANT’S NAME. My order number was ORDER NUMBER. The total of this order was listed as $83.85. As such, I generated a card number using MBNA ShopSafe with a limit of $90.00 to use as payment for this transaction. Please find enclosed a copy of the merchant’s email confirmation of this order.
On October 3, 2006, a charge of $80.21 posted to my account from this merchant. This was $3.64 less than the expected charge. I received one shipment containing two of the three items which I had ordered. In this shipment, it was mentioned that the third item was out of stock and would be shipped separately.
On October 10, 2006, a charge of $179.55 posted to my account from this merchant. This charge was never authorized, as no further orders were placed with the merchant. Upon contacting the merchant, I was transferred and subsequently disconnected.
On October 11, 2006, I contacted MBNA regarding this charge and was told that, “we are having trouble with… ShopSafe.” I was further told that the system was disabled and would remain so until the completion of the merger with Bank of America on November 1, 2006. I was told, however, following the representative’s conversation with the online banking department, that the second charge did, indeed, use the same number as the original charge. Thus, it should never have been allowed to go through, as it vastly exceeded the limit placed on the ShofSafe generated card.
Having spoken with REP’S NAME with the billing inquiries department, I was told that I could fax a written dispute to MBNA in order to dispute this charge.
To reiterate, I would like to dispute the October 10, 2006 charge of $179.55, as it was never authorized and should not have been able to post to the account, as the ShopSafe account did not have anywhere near the necessary available credit to accept this transaction.
PoodleMan
PoodleMan PoodleMan’s Phone Number
ENCLOSED: Order confirmation email from the merchant (two additional pages).
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Thanks for the warning. It's hard to tell from your post if you are asking a question or just posting a warning for the rest of us. If it's the former, could you rephrase the question?
Just throwing the information out there for consumption. Not really asking a particular question; although I am open to comments.
~PoodleMan
taylor said:Thanks for the warning. It's hard to tell from your post if you are asking a question or just posting a warning for the rest of us. If it's the former, could you rephrase the question?
PoodleMan said:Just throwing the information out there for consumption. Not really asking a particular question; although I am open to comments.
~PoodleMan
taylor said:Thanks for the warning. It's hard to tell from your post if you are asking a question or just posting a warning for the rest of us. If it's the former, could you rephrase the question?
thanks for the head's up poodleman. let us know what happens.
If I'm not mistaken, I recall reading several posts in the past where MBNA permitted charges against a virtual number in excess of the pre-authorized amount. I think the most common response was that the charges were permitted as a courtesy to the customer.
The same thing happened to me recently, luckily it was a small amount. But still I called customer service to complain and promptly had the charged reversed without having to fax in a dispute form.
At first she said that I had to fax in a dispute form but I told her that I didn't have one because my transactions are done online and the charge shouldn't have gone through in the first place.
Thanks for the warning, I just thought it was a blip on my account only!
That seems to be a rather irrational response on their part. If I am not mistaken, the purpose of setting a limit with a system such as ShopSafe, or Citi’s equivalent, is to ensure that one’s card will not be billed in excess of the preset amount. In their PR release of October 2000, MBNA states, “MBNA Customers will have even more control over any online purchase by setting a specific dollar amount and time limit for the substitute credit card number.”
gatzdon said:If I'm not mistaken, I recall reading several posts in the past where MBNA permitted charges against a virtual number in excess of the pre-authorized amount. I think the most common response was that the charges were permitted as a courtesy to the customer.
I was told that some charges will go through even with a set limit, but it shouldn't be a big amount. I have used a virtual number and set a very low limit and it usually works because I have received messages from merchants stating that they tried to charge my card but received a message saying "exceeding credit limit". The CSR just said that the amount can always be disputed. But I agree that it doesn't make much sense to have a set limit and it can be exceeded in by a small amount.
I guess this means that we can all purchase prepaid MBNA credit cards and keep using them until we exceed the limit on the card. If their system can't block a charge that would exceed the credit limit, it probably won't protect their prepaid cards from exceeding their limit either.
I suppose the only good is that, in my experience, I have found MBNA to be very consumer friendly in disputes. I still think that any charge in excess of a pre-set limit should (a) never have been allowed to go through and (b) should be removed without the need to fax or mail in any documentation. However, so long as the charge is reversed, I am a happy camper.
I wanted to update you folks about this issue. First, I was told that since this was on my AOPA Visa and not my ML Visa that they would not remove the transaction until the dispute was complete. I have spent literally five hours on the phone with them being transferred round and round. I contemplated recording my history of the issue so that the peons that answer the lines can get off to my story, as they all fear transferring people to supervisors. Oh, pardon me: “MANAGERS”. At one point, I was told that they were available until 5PM for billing disputes. The next day, I was told 9PM. Third day, I was told was 5PM with MBNA, now 9PM following merger. Was told manager would call me within 48 hours. NEVER HAPPENED. I called back and GOT THE SAME PERSON ON THE LINE. She recalled my having spoken with her 3 times already and seemed surprised that I didn’t receive a call back. I said I already know the answer to this question, because I’m psychic, but is there a supervisor available? I was shocked to hear yes. Only to be fed more disinformation about the process. Was told that she would fax item to me to sign that states I did not authorize the transaction. Even though I already sent them this, they wanted it in their wording on their paper. I called as it stated that my account number would change. I mentioned to more than one supervisor that my REAL account number was never compromised and that only the ShopSafe number was known to the merchant. I was told it was Visa’s policy, as opposed to MC’s that the account number must change despite it having been done via the ShopSafe account. I am fuming angry and cannot, at this point, even recall all the crap I was fed and expected to believe. Instead of asking for a manager, I should have asked for someone with a college education. That would have been more productive. When I asked to cancel the account, I was told I would lose all my points. So angry, argh! Adrenaline makes proper grammar difficult. Five damned hours on a phone; charge still on my account! Ahh! Wait 72 hours they said. Sure, what's 72 more?!
PoodleMan said:I wanted to update you folks about this issue. First, I was told that since this was on my AOPA Visa and not my ML Visa that they would not remove the transaction until the dispute was complete. I have spent literally five hours on the phone with them being transferred round and round. I contemplated recording my history of the issue so that the peons that answer the lines can get off to my story, as they all fear transferring people to supervisors. Oh, pardon me: “MANAGERS”. At one point, I was told that they were available until 5PM for billing disputes. The next day, I was told 9PM. Third day, I was told was 5PM with MBNA, now 9PM following merger. Was told manager would call me within 48 hours. NEVER HAPPENED. I called back and GOT THE SAME PERSON ON THE LINE. She recalled my having spoken with her 3 times already and seemed surprised that I didn’t receive a call back. I said I already know the answer to this question, because I’m psychic, but is there a supervisor available? I was shocked to hear yes. Only to be fed more disinformation about the process. Was told that she would fax item to me to sign that states I did not authorize the transaction. Even though I already sent them this, they wanted it in their wording on their paper. I called as it stated that my account number would change. I mentioned to more than one supervisor that my REAL account number was never compromised and that only the ShopSafe number was known to the merchant. I was told it was Visa’s policy, as opposed to MC’s that the account number must change despite it having been done via the ShopSafe account. I am fuming angry and cannot, at this point, even recall all the crap I was fed and expected to believe. Instead of asking for a manager, I should have asked for someone with a college education. That would have been more productive. When I asked to cancel the account, I was told I would lose all my points. So angry, argh! Adrenaline makes proper grammar difficult. Five damned hours on a phone; charge still on my account! Ahh! Wait 72 hours they said. Sure, what's 72 more?!
Stop calling, start writing. That's all I can say.
After filing a complaint with the BBB serving DE, I received a call back from the (((drumroll))) Office of the President... of Bank of America. After having a pleasant conversation with the gal at the other end of the line, I am fairly confident that they will attempt to resolve this issue. If not, it's the guillotine for them! Funny how fast you get a response when you send in a well-worded complaint through a third-party in writing. Maybe they learned from their recent days of arresting folks in their branches. Although they were fairly quick to blame all issues on the merger. With as much money as they net, they should have put a little bit more to use to ensure a seemless transition.
This is NOTHING new with Shopsafe. I got screwed by them a year ago with an unauthorized charge and have mentioned it many times here. I don't understand why people continue to use it when it clearly doesn't work and they let anything go through even though it is way above the limit or exp date.
What were you told when you spoke with their reps? If it was over a year ago, they couldn't possibly blame it on a merger that was likely unknown to them.
tashayar said:This is NOTHING new with Shopsafe. I got screwed by them a year ago with an unauthorized charge and have mentioned it many times here. I don't understand why people continue to use it when it clearly doesn't work and they let anything go through even though it is way above the limit or exp date.
Oh they told me it was "impossible." Uh huh, yeah right. This had nothing to do with the merger, their system just plain didn't work. I created the number for ONE time use, and a year later it was used 3x by the same vendor. Even when I disputed the charge they didn't even put it into pending. In the end it was the VENDOR who took care of it. MBNA was just crap about it and I haven't used them since (well, just to get my free ipod.)
PoodleMan said:What were you told when you spoke with their reps? If it was over a year ago, they couldn't possibly blame it on a merger that was likely unknown to them.
tashayar said:This is NOTHING new with Shopsafe. I got screwed by them a year ago with an unauthorized charge and have mentioned it many times here. I don't understand why people continue to use it when it clearly doesn't work and they let anything go through even though it is way above the limit or exp date.
I used shopsafe for $100 on my Baseball CC to qualify toward the free ipod. Well it posted on my other BofA CC!. So if u have multiple BofA CC be warned, you dont know which one it'll apply too!
I've noticed that it used to (may still) default to whatever account was listed at the top of NetAccess upon login. You had to manually change it each and every time within ShopSafe in order to get it to bill to the proper account. This was particularly important for me, as I was an AU on another card that it would default to and didn't feel the need to explain and reimburse for charges that should never have gone there in the first place.
welookgoodcom said:I used shopsafe for $100 on my Baseball CC to qualify toward the free ipod. Well it posted on my other BofA CC!. So if u have multiple BofA CC be warned, you dont know which one it'll apply too!
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