Susan Keezer: The exhausting side of holiday shopping
My head hurts.
This was supposed to be the day I was going to wrap the Christmas gifts that had survived being used to break the small toe on my right foot, using the pretty wrapping paper that somehow ended up under my bed and tying them up with shiny ribbon that Frank and Sam had grabbed and unwound from its spool throughout the house.
Instead, I spent the day putting out the following brushfires:
1. Trying to get a credit card refund for a sweater that had to be sent back to Macy’s.
2. Disputing a charge on the same credit card for something in a different area.
Some of you will brush me off like a piece of scrambled egg stuck on your shirt. Just two? You say to yourself, huh, I put out more than that before I get out of bed. This woman is so whiney.
But you are still reading, aren’t you?
Here is how the Macy’s attempted return unraveled, along with my patience and normally sunny self. By the way, orders do now reach me after I finally convinced Macy’s that 49221 is the ZIP code for Adrian, not Cadmus.
This sweater arrived and could easily have covered Gargantuan in his prime years.
I went online to report to Macy’s that this monster needed to return to the 7,000-square-foot warehouse where it lived with its master.
Anyway, Macy’s wanted to give me a Macy’s gift card instead of a refund for the sweater. “Refund Options” its page read but only one option showed up: the card. I worked away trying to find some way to bypass this. No luck. It took some time to find an 800 number to call to get what I wanted. I waited on hold for about 15 minutes before a human answered. As soon as I said I could not understand Urdu, my call was disconnected. I redialed, waited and reached another human who asked, “Whom with do you might have the pleasure of speaking on this goodness day?” I considered saying I was the 42nd wife of a prince from a remote kingdom but feared she would say she was the 41st and refuse to help me.
I was now into my second hour trying to hose down this fire.
She really was trying to work this out and finally said she would send me an email with a label for me to append for the return via UPS — and credit my account.
That was six hours ago. No email has arrived from Macy’s I am too cranky to start over. She assured me she signed me up for some program that is supposed to benefit me.
She wanted to know why I didn’t use my Macy’s card. Simple. Someone had used it twice to outfit themselves at my expense.
Fire #2.
I should have known that Talbot’s would not have a stratospheric sale advertised on Facebook. Should have but it was late, and I was sleepy so $59.99 later, I was certain I had ordered some fine sweaters for the cost of a few postage stamps.
Forty-eight hours later, I sat up in bed and wished I could shoot some hoops with my head. How stupid of me.
I started thumbing through all contacts possible to let American Express know that not only was I an elderly dodo bird but was going to refuse to pay a $59.99 charge. Did that amount appear on my statement as a Talbot’s charge? Of course not. The $59.99 appeared across from Auroratech Innovations. A note told me that my December 22 statement would show the amount billed by Chic Dress Cove.
Perhaps I do not communicate as well as I like to think. I had some problem trying to explain to the first American Express representative the above-mentioned companies had nothing to do with Talbot’s. I approached this from several directions until it finally reached fruition some two hours and one rep later.
The way this is now to be handled is this. I am to wait until the date by which one of these alleged businesses sends me something. When or if a package arrives, I am to call American Express and report the lack of any Talbot labels. At that point, the dispute of the bill will begin.
Scammers have gotten so sophisticated that they can slide under social media platforms’ verification fences and do. Then they proceed to advertise as if they are Talbots or Dillards or Nordstroms. Surely Facebook and others can afford to have someone taking down these ads when they appear. I would apply for that job very happily.
— Susan Keezer lives in Adrian. Send your good news to her at lenaweesmiles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Susan Keezer: The exhausting side of holiday shopping
