Back in December the Husband purchased a theme park pass from the Disney store in preparation for his trip to Florida. Apparently it's cheaper to do here than once you're out there. It's a significant purchase - a few hundred dollars. He told me which bank account he'd used for the transaction as we had accidentally swapped wallets that day.
Um, honey, the amount we have in savings in that account is exactly zero dollars and zero cents. It's all in the chequing account.
I, being the watchdog of our accounts, checked our transactions diligently. Sooner or later I figured the bank would notice that a significant amount of money had been withdrawn from an empty account. I figured eventually it would be pulled from our chequing account. No such transaction appeared. It seemed we had a ghost account.
Finally three months later I confessed to my uncle, manager of the bank. The next day the husband and I reminded ourselves that honesty is the best policy. We found the receipts and headed to the bank. The Husband drove and I looked at the receipts.
I exclaimed at the amount of money we owed. And then I saw it:
"Transaction not approved. Void"
It wasn't a bank error at all! It was a store error. And so, we headed to the mall hoping that records from 3 months ago would be impossible to find.
We told the store manager our story. Oh yes, she remembered when that happened! Their machine processed it as paid, although the receipt told the truth. Sure, we could pay it now! And so we forked it over and squared up our debt. Thank you. Come again.
I didn't feel good though. I grumbled and complained. We wouldn't have HAD to go back. They would never have found us. As much as we didn't check our receipt, they didn't either. Shouldn't they meet us half way? Or maybe give us some store credit? After all, a baby is clearly on the way. Shouldn't we be rewarded for our honesty?
Then I realized how silly it is to feel entitled when it was me who owed the debt in the first place. The store didn't owe me anything. I owed them.
Yet I still feel strangely ripped off.
2 comments:
They could have at least let you pick a nice cuddly stuffed Disney character or something like that... I agree, even though they didn't need to, it would have been really good customer service to reward you in some way -- I'm sure it doesn't happen too often!
I know that feeling. And you're right. They don't owe you anything. Your honesty and integrity are worth far more than the money that you paid for the tickets.
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