I went to the Big 5 store to look for look for food and cooking utensils, propane stoves .... for camping - on my land as I build an off-the-grid dwelling. I was a little surprised that the prices were higher than I remember from when I used to live the RV lifestyle years ago in California. Surprised also at the variety of things available and I got some ideas of things I could use later on. Staff were friendly and would have helped but I just wanted to look at prices and prioritize things myself.
When I made my choices and noted what things I wanted to get later, I carried the stuff to the register and they tallied it up to $216.44. O.K. I swiped the visa card through the machine and waited and finished the transaction and hit the green button as the salesclerk told me to. And again, since it was not doing anything. Then the machine turned itself off. He called some else to the checkout counter and had him do something and check out another customer and then they decided the transaction was lost. That took about 15 minutes. They re-booted the system and the c.c. machine came to life again and they had to ring everything up again and I had to swipe the card again and this time it worked. I asked what about the first transaction. They told me it did not exist. They said it had not gone through so don't worry about it. O.K.
Then I look at my online bank statement two days later and I have two identical entries for 216.44. Each one raised my credit card debt by 216.44. One paper receipt, two transaction numbers and 432.88 of my money gone.
I called the Big 5 manager about it and he said they didn't have anything to do with these computer things and he gave me the number of their corporate office.
Of course the office was not taking calls at this time so I called my bank and they put me through their list of dumb questions: Did I have a receipt for each transaction? What kind of question is that? If I had two receipts ?? then I would have already taken care of the issue when I was at the store wouldn't I ???
The bank is going to handle this case and the negotiations with the Big 5 corporate office for me.
Corporate crooks dealing with corporate greed.
If you go to Big 5 on W. Bell Road, be prepared for cheerful staff who will happily take your money and cannot make their computer system work - and tell you to trust them. They seem to be able to cause problems but not to fix their own mistakes.