Amazon.com
Charged for item not purchased $575 then despite my notification still charged my card

On Friday 7/11/08 I went onto Amazon.com and purchased a book. I went directly to the book as I had a link. Paid for it and left, I didn't go anywhere else on the site. This morning, 7/12/08, I was up at 6AM and checked my email. To my surprise there were 2 order confirmations from Amazon.com. My first thought was they charged me twice for the $35 book, not so lucky. The 2nd one was for a $575.95 telescope..??? I called Amazon immediately and was told by the typically clueless "help" person that I had made the order. Blood just starting to boil and I can suddenly see into the future and it didn't look good. After semi convincing this person that I didn't make the order. That THEY had messed up, he told me there was nothing Amazon.com could do because the order was through one of the companies that uses Amazon. Not actually Amazon. I had to get ahold of Orion Telescopes to cancel the order, but he had sent them an email already telling them to cancel the order and that he would make sure I wasn't billed. Right. I had to wait 3 hours until Orion opened on the west coast and I called them. They were great, had it under control and the order was already dissolved.

Great, everything going fine. About noon I received an apologetic email from Amazon.com and was once again assured that my debit card wasn't charged. Around 4PM I needed to go online with my bank and pay a couple of bills. Right at the top I find Amazon payment -575.95..in red of course. Not enough left to pay my bills. I call Amazon and speak to a woman with a very strong Pakistan or India accent, I can't understand a word she is saying. I'm getting more upset. I ask for her supervisor but she keeps talking I tell her I can't understand her and I am getting louder. Finally she switches me to a supervisor that I can almost understand, she tells me I made the order and it went through to the bank. I lose it about 60%. She tells me it will be 7 business days before I can get the money back. The money they messed up. The money they took when they said they wouldn't. I lost it to 80%.. I was loud. I told her I wanted her supervisor. She wouldn't let me speak to one. I lost it 90%.. Finally she put me on hold for about 5 min and a man with a heavy accent came on the phone, The top man. Yeah. I was calm. Told him I was very upset and went through exactly what happened. I told him everything would be fine, just return my money immediately so I could pay my bills. He said there was nothing that could be done even though "it was clearly our fault". He told mt the money wasn't actually gone, just on hold. I told him it had been deducted from my balance and I couldn't pay my bills. He said 7 days. I lost it 100% and hung up. I can't pay my bills, checks are going to bounce. I didn't do anything to cause this. What can I do? The system isn't working properly. Once it's set in motion no one can or will stop it, because they don't really give a damn about us at all.

Company: Amazon.com
Country: USA
Phone: 8662161072
Site: www.amazon.com

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