I was recently sent some money from Sheffield that mysteriously never arrived. Our crap postal service got the blame. The money was from my pagan friend Moon Maiden & was for herbs for her shop. I told her I often feel there's some mysterious force at work, some sort of conspiracy to stop me having money!
A week or so after I needed books for my lecture in London at the Halloween Festival so I had to place an online order with Loompanics,my publishers. I hate doing this sort of thing & was worried about it going wrong. I was assured all the order was taken satisfactorily and the books were on their way. I was getting them with my author's discount and was able to afford it (or so I thought!)
Well, the books arrived promptly and I thought all was well until I read the packing slip which showed I had been charged the full rate and no discount had been taken off. So I lost no time in telling my publishers and they said they would refund the money I was over-charged. I felt relieved that the mistake had been corrected.
Little was I to know though, what horror was yet to be revealed, for when my bank statement arrived as well as showing the refund, which I wanted, it also showed that I had been charged twice for the full amount. This was a total of $411, which is a lot of money for me! Well, it would be bad enough that I had again been charged the full rate, but what was much worse was that this second payment was for a bundle of books I had never ordered and never received!
Horrified that my bank account was now well overdrawn, I once more I contacted my publisher and was told that they had checked their records and that no second payment was shown. I was recommended to send a copy of the statement to them and also to phone my bank and complain. I followed the advice and the bank said they would have to send me a form to sign to confirm this before they could take action and refund my money.
I contacted my publisher again to give them an update and was then given an apology and the news that somehow their fail safe that is designed to prevent an account being charged more than once, had failed to work properly and that it was them who had received this second payment. The Loompanics shipping department is completely baffled because this has not happened before. They are now going to refund this money too. But the mystery remains, and it looks like my paranoia about a negative force that works to prevent me ever getting rich was justified! Perhaps this was a true case of a ghost in the machine?
