After finding unauthorized charges on my account, I Googled the name on the unauthorized charge, and I was lead here. This helped confirm my suspicion that my account was being charged either 1) in error, due to faulty controls, sloppy or careless data entry clerks[do you think they really can get PhD's to do the data entry work, or conversely, do you think they can PhD-level work out of someone you are only willing to pay data-entry wages? No, cost rules here, and their "cost-effectiveness" becomes our many "billing errors"], or worse 2) with fraudulent intent.
Frankly, the net effect amounts to the same. Even my bank doesn't get a free pass on this one, though they did agree to help by disputing these charges, once I declared my intent to find another bank as an alternative. After a brief conversion, my bank agreed to dispute any remaining errant charges. Now, to Ccbill's credit, the three charges have been getting reversed, piecemeal, and not exactly in the same amounts as were charged [which would suggest a large amount of possibility 1) above as an "excuse"]. I'd rather not be faced with the responsibility of accusing a company of outright fraud unless I can back it up, because at that point, I would have already engage counsel and filed charges.
BUT, due to what I hope turn out to be shoddy controls, lazy, careless, or incompetent employees (that is something to hope for? Well, beats the fraud possibility, I guess...), I had to cancel my current card, get another one issued, then deal with all the _responsible_ vendors whom I've given the now canceled number (for the second time in around two months), arrange their payment via other means while I wait for US snail-mail to deliver another card. Even though it may not be, it may as well be fraud. The net effect is the same.
Slipshod, shabby, incompetent, lame BS, we all have to deal with it far too often. And who gets to pay for it? We do, as usual. You can't put the incompetent out of business by legal means, so you have to help the market do it. Mercifully, markets are Darwinian things. Eventually this kind of BS will cease to survive due to its own sloth, in linear relation to the number of people like me whom they shouldn't have risked pissing off. Here's hoping that my little piece has a role, no matter how small.
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