That was suboptimal

So I went to Sherman.

The first part of the day was good - got a barbecue lunch, went to JoAnn's and got some stuff, went to the Ulta and got a few things.

Then I decided to go to Target, because there were a few things from there I could use.

Got a lot of stuff - Target is often cheaper than the grocery stores, and for non perishable things, it makes sense to buy there and not at the local wal-mart because I get to avoid the 9.375% grocery sales tax in my state.

So, I unloaded all my stuff (including a couple of treats) and the checker rang it all through. And then I tried to pay with my Target "red card."

Nope, the card reader was having none of that.

"Strange," I thought, but assumed that maybe the chip got a little damaged? So I pulled out my regular Mastercard, which I had JUST used at JoAnn's, and which I KNEW (because I keep track of such things, and I also don't spend THAT much in a month) was not up to its limit.

No dice there.

So in desperation I pulled out the Visa (I had not carried my whole purse in with me on the grounds that probably the neck pain I suffer is carrying a too-heavy purse around, so I had just brought in my card case).

No, that didn't work either.

I was MORTIFIED.

Yes, I know someone who works in a business where credit cards have to regularly be charged and I have heard him complain about all the deadbeats whose cards got declined. And here I was, now I was one, even though I hadn't planned on it. And, I stood there anguished - people stacking up behind me, nothing I could do. I wasn't going to abandon $100 of merchandise, some of it stuff I genuinely needed, and just leave.

So I asked for a receipt and promised to go to the customer service and try to figure it out.

And waited for like 10 minutes because like everywhere on this planet now, the Target is understaffed and the people who DO work there are overworked. A guy wandered buy just as the woman ahead of me and I were calling out "HELLO IS THERE ANYONE BACK THERE" to the empty back room and when we looked to him for help, he declared he was Off The Clock but would get someone, so...

She finally came, took care of the return the other person was doing. I explained the problem to her.

First I tried my cards again - nothing. Not a one worked. She gave me the stink-eye.

So I begged them to let me leave the stuff, and to go out to my car to get my checkbook.

Which I did, but they were JUST beginning to look like they were going to start taking the stuff out of bags and reshelve it, I suppose they assumed I just bunked it in embarrassment; they did look surprised I came back.

I paid, and went out to my car.

And called the Mastercard people, figuring maybe the card number had been stolen? How? Between JoAnn's and here?

Talked to the woman there. She seemed to think it was a function of me, an Oklahoma resident, being in North Texas - she claimed it triggered a fraud alert. (REALLY? REALLY?)

I begged her to reinstate the card; she had noted the "JoAnn's charge looked suspicious" and I was like YOU DO NOT KNOW ME AT ALL DO YOU?

Finally (as my phone battery was dying, and I guess it's time to get a new cell phone, because the battery on this one no longer holds a charge very long), she agreed....so I could go get groceries.

And I did. Warning the lady at Kroger's that if the card didn't work, I'd have to write a check. (And at that point, I fully expected it NOT to work).

Surprisingly, it did.

So then I went home (not having gone to either the bookstore nor the natural-foods store, both because it was getting late and because I was worried that if I used the card anywhere else, it would get locked down again). And driving home, I thought darkly about how "Now I'm going to have to call the credit card providers EVERY time I leave town to let them know it's okay for my card to be charged? What kind of stupid dystopia is this?" and I decided that if that was now the case, I would just become That Woman. You know her - the one who either is digging in her purse for bills and change (for smaller purchases) or writing a check (for larger ones). The one who always gums up the works at the grocery store. But what choice did I have?

Now granted: I had had to call Target earlier that morning; they were unhappy, apparently, about the Sirius XM subscription charge, which I moved to THAT card because it had a later expiration date than the card I had it on, and last time the card expired it was kind of a nightmare dealing with Sirius XM. And I had dutifully called in and said, "yes, that is my charge" and I thought everything was good, but I figured: well, maybe it didn't go through. Though I didn't know what was up with the Visa.

So when I got home, I called Target (because in the past they have been more helpful). The woman I talked to said she saw no attempted charge on the card and after further discussion said, "I suspect their software was malfunctioning" but I am SURE I saw other people successfully using cards before me so - I don't even know.

I called Visa, same exact story: "Your card does not have a hold on it, everything is fine, the last transaction I see was at the Ulta in Sherman" and I was like yes, that was me.

So, I don't know. Then I thought: Could there have been some malware in the Target store's system? (I really hope there weren't skimmers, though on two separate readers?)


So I took the stupid survey on the bottom of the charge slip and as much as said "You need to investigate this particular store's POS terminals" and I tried calling them, but there was obviously no one at Customer Service again because I held on the line for more than five minutes with no answer.

So I don't know. Maybe I can never go back to the Target in Sherman again. I was *extremely* embarrassed about the whole thing. I mean, I made it right - I paid by check and obviously they did it as an EFT because the check came through good - but it was still embarrassing.