Stupid stupid stupid

Last monday I was due to fly out to the US for a meeting. I won't go over it again. Suffice it to say that the flight never took off and I had the displeasure to spend 3 hours in the airplane being teased by the captain.. "we will try again in 30 minutes folks so sit back and make yourselves comfortable".

Yeah right.

Anyway after the 3 hour stint in the aircraft I had the displeasure of lining up for 2 hours to get a refund. I bought the ticket online, directly from the airline, so this is the downside to this kind of online selling.

Anyhow, 2 hours later I had my refund processed to my credit card.

I checked last week on the website of the credit card and the refund was there, refunded in full. Grand.

Except this morning when the missus checked the bank account statement online the plonkers had only gone ahead and billed me for the flight in full and conveniently overlooked the refund they had received.

I called the number on the back of the credit card and the first time nobody answered. Silly me, must have called them at an inconvenient time what with it being a 24x7 service.

The next time someone answered, clearly in another country. Not going to get into that now. I gave her my details, card number, date of birth, blood group, favourite colour and all the rest of it. Then she asks me how she can help.

I explain the situation. I got a full refund for my cancelled flight and you people received the money. "So why did you take the money out?" I ask her.

She says.. ok deep breath... she says "well nobody told us that the flight was cancelled". Yes. Indeed.

Come on.. seriously. I am supposed to tell them that I didn't take the flight. Well several weeks of watching CHiPs and Scooby Doo with my boys has given me some new super sleuthing clues about this mystery.

The original ticket was bought from Aer Lingus. The refund for the exact same amount came from... yes that's right .. Aer Lingus. Hmmm what could that mean?

I tell her this is ridiculous. The money is there to refund the ticket so why did they withdraw it.

She tries on the whole timing thing.. "maybe the refund took place after we debited the money". I'm getting annoyed "Look. You took the money out this morning, the refund was processed last week.. I know because I queued 2 hours for it".

She asks me "what would you like me to do?".. this is a progress question at last.

I tell her I want the money credited to my bank account immediately. She starts well "I can arrange that and it will take a day or two".. then she adds "but it could take up to a week".

This I can't accept. A week. This is 2006 not 1966.

I tell her "maybe there is somewhere on the record you can add this but I don't accept a delay of a week." I tell her if it's not in my bank account in 2 days I'll be calling again.

I can't be dealing with this. I'm supposed to be on vacation.

And it's raining again. AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!