Wal-Mart is the devil, you say? Surely not!

Or, maybe they are.
For those of you following along at home, I give you this -

So apparently I was in Bulgaria this afternoon. No, really, I was.

I am freaking out. This just might send me over the edge, here.

Colin went to get groceries. It was denied, said we were over on our card. Which is not true, since I checked it like 4 hours ago and we had nearly $300 on there.

Sometime between then and now, someone in FUCKING BULGARIA did an atm withdrawal for almost $300. Somehow they had my card and my ATM and were able to do that.

Of course, I called WalMart (it is a pre-paid debit card so we don't get ourselves into monetary trouble.) THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO FOR ME. I screamed, a lot. It is the only time I've ever screamed and yelled like that on a call with someone. Apparently, at Borica Bulgaria RFB ATM, someone was able to take our money. It is pending at the moment, which means that the bank may or may not collect on it. If the bank collects on it? Then I have to write a dispute letter and we have to hope that the bank will give us the money back. If they don't, then it won't expire until the 17th. Which means I won't get the money until the 18th. A day after we are supposed to move.

I am completely freaking out right now. We SHOULD be ok without it...but that $300 was a buffer in case anything happened. That money was to make SURE that we would get to Montana safely.

Oh, even fucking better, I had to report the card as compromised. You know, so the dickwads can't take more money. Guess how long it takes to get a new card? 7-10 business days. Guess where I am SUPPOSED to be by that point? Fucking MONTANA! They can expadite it of course, but I had to pay an extra $20 to get my card in 3-5 business days!!!

I am so fucking furious I can't even see straight. I don't know what we're going to do if the money doesn't come through. I'm just thanking god that we didn't deposit the cash we have. Without the 300, we'll be OK...but...

Freaking out. Seriously. Don't know what to do. screams I don't need this!!!!!

For the past MONTH and some change, I have been battling with them. They have given me nothing but the run-around, and we still do not have our money back. I have sent them their dispute letter, I have waited patiently even though they give me conflicting information and I can hardly understand most of them. I have been incredibly patient.

Until today.

Today was a day where I nearly went through the phone and smacked someone.

Today is 10 business days from when they received my dispute letter and theoretically, they should have had a resolution for me. First call I make, I ask to speak with a manager and I am on hold for nearly 10 minutes - at which time the system automatically transfers me to the customer satisfaction survey. How do I know that is what happened? It's happened to me FIVE times through all of this.

Next I call back, and demand a manager right off the bat. Once again, on hold for too long, and I get the customer satisfaction survey. I actually DO the survey this time, and give them all crappy marks.

Third times a charm, right? I call and demand a manager off the bat, again. The guy must have realized I was incandescent with rage, as he promptly got me to a manager. This one was bright enough to check in with me every few minutes to make sure I didn't get shuffled off again.

Before I go any further, I must state that I am not mad at the supervisor I spoke to. He did everything in his power (as far as I can tell) to help me resolve my issue.

I spent another 15 minutes or so on hold, but he was very polite, and kept checking in with me. I tried very hard not to be pissy with him, he was being competent. So he gets back on the line, and tells me he has bad news for me.

He tells me they have denied our dispute. And the reason given is because 2 hours after the unauthorized charge was made, there was a $7.00 charge at a grocery store in Tulsa. So, because my husband bought groceries so we could eat, we would be penalized nearly $300? Oh hell no!

I started yelling. A lot. And crying. There were tears and a lot of incoherency. To his credit, he apologized profusely and commiserated. I explained to him in exact detail what had happened the day that the money was taken. Apparently, that was not quite what they had in the system...even though that was what I had described EVERY time I had talked to people there. And that was the exact information in my dispute letter. He offered to speak to the dispute department to see what else could be done. I told him that'd be a VERY good idea.

He told me he had sent my information along to to the dispute department with a high priority. He told me that they would review my information and they would call me back. I told him, as calmly as I possibly could, that I had been promised that before. I'd been told someone from disputes would call me, and no one had contacted me. I also impressed upon him that I wasn't angry at him, but that the situation was utterly ridiculous. That it is completely unacceptable to treat a customer the way I have been treated.

Not even 10 minutes later, I got a call from the dispute department. She assured me that the review was NOT completed yet. When I informed her that it was 10 business days, and I wanted a resolution, she told me that they had sent me an extension letter...so it would still take some time. I pretty much got the same run around from her, being told that they were still reviewing it and that it should be resolved by the end of the week. But she did promise to make sure someone called me back sometime this week.

We have to face the very real possibility that we will not be getting our money back from this little fun time. We discussed trying to go to Legal Aid if they won't give us the money back. But as Colin's dad told him, it is an international situation. So I'm guessing that is why it is taking Wal-Mart so long to do this. In fact, I am fairly certain they will not be able to get us our money back, and we're just going to be shit out of luck over it.

I can't really begin to describe how upset I am right now. I have been given the run around for over a month, and we STILL don't have our money back. God only knows when - if ever - we'll see that money again. Their customer service representatives are rude, they are IMPOSSIBLE to understand, and they obviously cannot take accurate notes. The supervisors are marginally better, but they promise things they can't deliver on.

When this is over, we will be closing down our Wal-Mart account, and we will not be using it again. If you have a Wal-Mart money card, I encourage you to do the same thing. This entire thing has been utterly ridiculous, and I feel like I've been treated horribly. In fact, at this point, I plan on avoiding Wal-Mart when at all possible. I realize there will be times when it is the only convenient option, but I will avoid it when I can. There will also be letters written to corporate and complaints written to the BBB.

So that is that. I should be getting my student loans in sometime in the next week or two, but we could REALLY use that money to live on until then. All in all, I am totally unimpressed, and pretty much furious.