🚀 go-pugleaf

Need some advice on how to handle a fraudulent charge... No, not how to get
it off my account, I can do that myself with my bank, I mean how to have the
company slapped so hard their credit card payment acceptance is suspended or
otherwise written up to provide them as much frustration as they have given
me.

Scenario --

On May 1st as many of you may know I had a drive failure.  I called Micropolis
for their advance replacement program.  It was supposed to be here on Thursday
for the charge of $50.  I would pay return shipping.

Due to a computer glitch (direct quote), it never shipped on Wednesday.  So
on Thursday, I was told that the advance fee would be credited back ($50)
and the return shipping would be prepaid.

That sounded good.  Now I discovered too good to be true.

The drive did arrive on the Friday, May 3.  I sent back the faulty drive on
Tuesday May 7, and have proof it was delivered to them May 9 (the tracking
number 8536019472 for those who wish to verify at www.fedex.com).

Today, I discovered during a casual audit of my credit card that they not
only billed me the $50 (authorized at the time of the initial advance
product replacement) without an associated credit showing yet, but they
also billed me $540 which I NEVER AUTHORIZED.  The paperwork shows that
they will bill the full current list price of the drive if not received
within 7 days.  Well, they not only billed it, they billed it before the
replacement ever left their facility.

It will be a "cold day in hell" before I buy another Micropolis drive.
For $300, I could have bought a 1 Gig drive elsewhere with a three year
warranty and the Micropolis drive was only 2.5 years old when it died.

I wanted to alert people to their fraudulent ways of doing business, if
you need to do business with them, open a credit card with a $100 limit
and that way when they try to commit this fraud (charge without your
authorization) it will bounce, and you can ask?  But why would there
be a problem with $50 on an account good for $100, surely you were not
trying to sell me the drive now, were you?

I have numerous times dealt with advance replacement and what they are
supposed to do is verify the amount of charge as being capable of going
on the card and only post it to the card if the old product is not 
returned.  They are NOT suppose to bill the card and then credit it,
as I could have had my billing cycle end May 3, and now be out of pocket
$540 for the next month!!!

I will call them in the morning and demand an immediate credit as well as
ask what they plan to do to make good on this situation and attempt to
salvage my business, I am NOT amused by their fraudulent practice.  I also
plan to place this situation in writing to my bank, but I'd love to have
them temporarily suspended in accepting credit cards while they fix their
fraudulent advance replacement service procedures.

I had no problem when I was told "computer glitch failed to let it ship",
I do have a problem of this "surprise" I learned this morning.

Any other horror stories out there?  Who should I use next for a manufacturer
of drives?

Steven
-- 
Steven G. Bradley    |    The Forest City Exchange    | 121 Cambridge Drive
System Administrator |      Forest City, Florida      | Longwood, FL 32779-5707
                     | 1200-14400/PEP  1200-33600/HST | 
steven@sgb.oau.org   | (407) 862-5112  (407) 862-8088 | Tel: (407) 862-7226