Credit Cards

Lune-atik NAA card
Originally uploaded by dklé [NAA gourou aka Zedelph]

So last night I managed to catch up with my ever more gorgeous friend, Yuko and we headed off for really good food and pretty good drinks in some of Tokyo’s smallest bars and restaurants. All very cool. However come bar two and time to pay my credit card was declined. No biggie, huh?

This morning I get up to find a FRAUD ALERT e-mail in my inbox. MY card has been frozen pending my contacting the company. They give me a web link, I follow it, enter my details and am told that this issue can’t be resolved online and to call the number below. Frustrating but hey, it happens right.

The number below of course is a 1-800 number – which can be dialed only from within the US. Irritating.

Still there’s a number on the back of my card that says “If you’re outside of the US call this number COLLECT and it will cost you nothing”

I dial the operator, she puts me through to AT&T and I’m told “I’m sorry Sir but that number can’t be dialed collect from anywhere in the world” Frustrating again.

So I bite the bullet. My cell doesn’t work in Japan. My Blackberry doesn’t work in Japan. My credit card company is giving out duff numbers like they were ‘home base’ cards at a Prom and I am going to need to pay and get the hell out of here at some point. Hotel phone. $8 a minute but hey I’ll get through.

I do, I’m put on hold. Then drawled at by a woman who doesn’t seem to realize that her every elongated, mangled, tortured vowel is costing me $5. She puts me through to another number with ‘excessively long wait times” – I’m told how valuable my call is, move up through the virtual line and am then dropped. Frustrating, huh.

I call back. This time I’m on hold. I get through. My account, social security number and address no longer exist. Apparently. Frustrating. I bite my lip and try again – oh yes there I am. I’m put through, put on hold and get through to another vowel mangler.

This women then chastises me for traveling overseas without first calling to tell them and rather pointedly asks me why the hell I was trying to spend $18,000 at 2am on a Piano. As though this is the problem. The temptation to scream “Because I can!” is swallowed as I realize that I do need my card working and I point out that I was trying to spend 18,000 YEN (US$150) in a bar CALLED Piano at 2am. She puts my card right – I thank her, dash over to Starbucks to buy a $4 latte just to check that I’m now okay and resolve to find some kind of Japanese bathhouse so that I can let off steam in the steam room.

Gnnnrrrrr.