Before my previous post, my last entry was dated almost three weeks ago. So what have I been doing since the start of my maternity leave last week, you might ask.

My friend Roselle in California is sending a package to her family here in the Philippines. She has been kind enough to include some baby stuff for me in their box. Eventually, she told me she'll send me a separate box since she'll also be sending some of her kids' outgrown stuff for Issen and Kobe.

That didn't answer your question?

Okay, I have been shopping online on United States online stores for things that I've always wanted to buy for my boys, but have been hesitating because of the ridiculous international shipping charges. I order them online, pay through Paypal (there goes my paid opps earnings ) or my debit card and have the items delivered to Roselle's address.

My transactions have been smooth, except for one item. And ironic because the merchant is one of the most popular on the web, Amazon.com.

I used my Eon Debit Card, and on March 17, 2008, my account was charged. However, on March 19, I received an email from Amazon.com that my order was canceled because the said item was out of stock. "Your credit card was not charged for the order," the email continued.

I sent an email to the Amazon.com Customer Support and told them that my account was indeed charged for the order. Here are some excerpts of their response.

"I've checked the order details for order #(insert order number here) and can confirm that you were not charged for this order. The seller has canceled the order...

Looking into your inquiry, most likely, your bank is holding the extra authorizations on your card for this order. Some banks have been known to hold these authorizations for 7-10 business days. You may want to contact your bank to confirm that these are authorizations and to request that they remove the authorizations.

When you place an order with Amazon.com or on Amazon Marketplace, we contact your credit card's issuing bank to confirm that your credit card has a valid number, and has not been reported as lost or stolen.

This is communicated via a full authorization for the amount of the purchase. However, we do not actually proceed with the charge. This is simply one of the security measures we use to protect our customers."

I waited 7-10 business days in case the amount automatically gets credited back to my account, but to no avail.

So I called the Unionbank Customer Service Hotline on March 26 to inquire about this and I was told to send this email along with images of my Eon Card, front and back. As soon as I sent the email, I received an automated reply telling me that they would respond to my "query within 24 hours". I sent the email 3 days ago and I haven't got a word from them.

The automated reply also said that "For urgent requests, you may also contact us through our customer service hotline..." However, I have been calling and trying to talk to any of their Customer Service representatives since yesterday, but haven't succeeded yet.

That's another point against EON again. The error in my transaction could be normal, and it's okay. What I'm ranting about is the quality of their customer service. I probably shouldn't have expected too much from them, but I can't help it. The transaction is worth almost $50 and I'm no rich individual to just shrug that amount off.

Oh well. Talk about crappy customer service. So sad that it's all over the place.

Labels: EON, pregnancy blues, unionbank