After having my MasterCard declined today with a particularly unhelpful message ("05-481" NOT APPROVED), I tried to call up and find out what is going on.
The only positive part of that experience was the initial "the wait is longer than 20 minutes" warning. OK, leave it on speakerphone and do something else.
It turns out that "longer than 20 minutes" is code for "we are screwed and would rather waste your time than admit how long the wait really is". At no point did they provide updates as to how long a wait was remaining, or even a general network status type message so I would know if the problem was likely not isolated to my card.
So here I am with a possibly non-functional credit card and over half an hour of my life wasted so far. Thanks MasterCard.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Good Customer Service? Priceless.
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2 comments:
Did you ever figure out what the code meant? I had the same thing and thought I could look it up online but that doesnt seem to be the case.
I managed to tease out a semi-admission from Mastercard that it probably meant a store I used my card at had suffered a break in and credit card receipts might have been compromised.
They also told me that they don't bother to notify affected cardholders in those cases, and just cancel and reissue the card.
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