a message ‘Card declined – please check
with your card issuer’.
Well I don’t want to brag, but that’s never
happened before, so I rang the bank.
Eventually spoke to a real person. I wasn’t
the first-named on our joint card, so of
course they couldn’t speak to me, but
luckily PH was sitting next to me,
engrossed in some hobby or other. As
always, he was delighted to put down his
paintbrush to speak to the bank. It turned
out that the bank had stopped the card
because they had some suspected fraud
on certain accounts. On being told that
yes, we had made the purchases in
question that day, they switched it back on
again.
So, back to the hotel chain. Re-submitted
the details, and was told ‘Sorry, we cannot
process your request at this time – please
try again.’ After two more attempts I went
to the ‘Contact us’ page. It refused to
forward my complaint when I could not
give it a reservation number. How could I
when I hadn’t been able to make a
reservation? It was at this point I noticed
that at the very bottom of the complaints
page it said ‘We advise you not to make
repeated attempts to submit your card
details, as you may be charged more than
once’. I scoured the website for a phone
number – it was not to be found anywhere
– in fact they had a statement in the small
print that said ‘We prefer you not to
telephone us’ (or words to that effect).
rate offered on the website was not
available by telephone. By this time, I
couldn’t have cared less, but I took the
trouble to request a confirmation invoice
and spelt out my email address.
By the next day, when no email had
arrived, I rang my old friends at the hotel
chain for an explanation, giving my brandnew, hardly-used reservation number. It
turned out the lad had misspelt my name,
and the email had whistled off into the
ether, never to be seen again. My new
friend apologised, but she couldn’t readdress and resend the invoice. The
computer apparently did not allow it. But
that was OK because if I went on their
website (!) followed the trail to the ‘old’
website, and from there to ‘request a VAT
invoice’, I could view my invoice and print
off a copy.
Which is when I discovered that, in
addition to giving me the wrong initial, it
had addressed me as ‘Mr’.
If only I could persuade PH to speak to the
bank again, we could find out exactly how
many times we’ve been charged for our
three-night stay in Cambridgeshire, but I
guess we’ll have to wait until the next
credit card statement arrives.
Belle Walker
I hadn’t realised I was commenting on my
progress out loud, until PH said impatiently
‘Here: I’ve looked up their number – ring
them!’ An initially helpful young man took
my complaint and eventually asked if I
would like to book with him. I did so, and
discovered at the end that the preferential
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