$$ Issues with RCI.

[918baker]

Read this regarding Visa Dispute rules and how there are several different rules depending on circumstances.

 

Good read and I'm thinking your CU may be wrong.

 

 

I believe you meet the exceptions which is either when you find out it's not applied to your acct (that's today) or from when services are to be delivered (your cruise sailing). Visa sets these rules and your Credit Union simply has a Branded VISA but they must still operate under the VISA rules and not their own.

 

Read carefully!

 

 

https://chargeback.com/visa-chargeback-time-limits/

 

These are the rules your Credit Union must operate under to process your dispute. Basically same info as the link above but in Bank Legal Language so find your type of " Fraud No Card Present"

 

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/chargeback-management-guidelines-for-visa-merchants.pdf

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

Thank you so much! I took the rest of yesterday and this morning off from the internet :D now I'm waiting for my birthday cake to bake, kids are napping, and the internet lured me back, like always.

 

Reading through those PDFs in a minute. I sincerely appreciate you looking those up for me!

[918baker]

Also, contact the "big agency" that your ta works with. I think you said a while back, that she has a parent company, even though she works on her own, from her home. They have insurance for when things go wrong, and her charging your credit card, for someone elses reservation, is definitely wrong.

It should show on your reservation, who the actual agency is.

 

I don't know that you will be able to dispute the final payment, since now you know the fraud occured in September, when she charged someone elses cruise. You may have to get your money from ta and her parent company.

 

Yes! I found the 1800 number for the big parent company. Will start that adventure on Monday, enjoying my birthday weekend without being on constant hold :D

 

Right now, I have no idea who's reservation the charge is on. RC knows, but they won't tell me they'll only tell my TA... who's MIA. That's helpful. So I emailed the reference focusing number I got for the unauthorized credit card charge to the woman in the exec CS office. Hopefully they can tell me who charged my card.

 

I'm unsure if I would win a dispute as well, as it is the final payment written in the cruise contract and the fraudulent charge was not on my reservation nor applied to my reservation after the fact. Definitely looking into the option though.

[JVilleGal]

Thank you so much! I took the rest of yesterday and this morning off from the internet :D now I'm waiting for my birthday cake to bake, kids are napping, and the internet lured me back, like always.

 

Reading through those PDFs in a minute. I sincerely appreciate you looking those up for me!

 

 

Do read them but your situation is a bit more complicated I would rather you immediately reach out to Chris Elliott's organization and see if they can't pressure RCCL to do the right thing. You have the written proof they require assist.

 

Please see my post # 194 (they will only help if you ask for assistance)

 

http://elliott.org/help/

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Dixie1337]

Yes! I found the 1800 number for the big parent company. Will start that adventure on Monday, enjoying my birthday weekend without being on constant hold :D

 

Right now, I have no idea who's reservation the charge is on. RC knows, but they won't tell me they'll only tell my TA... who's MIA. That's helpful. So I emailed the reference focusing number I got for the unauthorized credit card charge to the woman in the exec CS office. Hopefully they can tell me who charged my card.

 

I'm unsure if I would win a dispute as well, as it is the final payment written in the cruise contract and the fraudulent charge was not on my reservation nor applied to my reservation after the fact. Definitely looking into the option though.

 

 

I assume your TA still has your cc #. If you haven't already you should really report the card as stolen and have a new one reissued. While you're doing that explain the whole situation & why you didn't dispute the charge back in September and ask if there's any recourse to get your money back.

[918baker]

@918Baker - As per the Fair Credit Billing Act, you have 60 days to dispute a charge on a credit card. Here is how the 60 days are calculated:

 

"For example, if an unauthorized charge was made on February 15 and your statement was mailed on March 1, you have until April 30 to dispute the charge in writing."

 

https://www.thebalance.com/what-to-do-about-unauthorized-credit-card-charges-960260

 

The chargeback document linked in an earlier post is in reference to a merchant's responsibility, not the amount of time you have to dispute a charge. Think of it this way: the credit card holder is the disputer of the charge and the merchant deals with the result of that dispute or better known as the chargeback. The dispute and the chargeback are related, but not the same.

 

Although most of the commenters on this thread continue to insist you will recover your $1,400, it might be a good idea to consider this money could be lost. Here is why:

 

September 2016 - $1,400 charge appears on credit card that is unauthorized.

November 2016 - Time limit to dispute $1,400 charge expires.

December 2016 - Final payment to RCCL charged to credit card and this payment is authorized.

 

It is the September 2016 charge that is unauthorized, not the December payment and disputing a portion of the December payment may not fly because it was authorized in the first place. The best thing you can do now is to call your bank, explain fully why you want to dispute the September charge (the 60 days are a guideline and the bank can decide to lengthen the time frame) or to completely explain why you are disputing only a portion of the December charge. Your bank is probably the best bet you have to getting your money back.

 

It is possible RCCL might do something for you, but it is not promising when agreed upon phone calls are missed and the earliest any information will be available to you is February 22nd. RCCL may feel no responsibility concerning this fiasco and will eventually tell you there is nothing they can do. After that, you can hit up social media, local news stations and so on, but there are no guarantees there, either. I hope RCCL does do something for you, but do not depend upon them to come through.

 

You can take your TA to court, but that will probably run you more than what you will recover. Also, if your TA is associated with a larger organization, start making the phone calls to them.

 

If you get stuck with the $1,400 bill, try to be philosophical about it. I know it sucks, I know it is wrong, but the lesson here would be never allow anyone to automatically charge your card ever again and to never hesitate on a credit card dispute. Credit card companies are in your corner during a timely dispute and if you had disputed in the 60 day period, you would have won. Again, I hope like Hades this all works out for you, but just prepare yourself for it to not go your way.

 

Good luck.

 

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response. I did NOT have automatic payments set up with my card which is another red flag. I did not dispute in September as I was under the impression that the fraudulent charge was applied to my reservation and final balance.

 

$1,400 won't kill us. It's painful, but no lessons are ever easy.

 

 

Will keep trying to reach a resolution with either RCCL or my TA and see where it goes.

[918baker]

Aren't you Mr Doom & Gloom! The minute they file a police report in the city this woman lives in she will likely write a check to stay out of jail and the news papers. I would think (not a lawyer) that anything $1000 or more is a felony. The other issue of course as this TA's house of cards is falling, "how many more victims are there".

 

I do believe that 918baker did not know until yesterday the Sept charge was fraud. She still thought it was an over charge & computer glitch. I'm betting based on what I posted earlier (yes the bank instructions for processing) there is leeway for interpretation given the particular circumstances.

 

Yes she absolutely could lose her $ and that's a bummer but there are likely avenues to be saved, RCCL because they allowed a third party's CC to be used to pay for a cruise of someone with a different last name. The TA herself to stop from getting to do a perp walk in handcuffs and/or the TA's insurance.

Small claims court will be an avenue of course.

 

No point in ruining 918baker's birthday weekend. She has a lovely cruise coming up and I feel this will be made right if for no other reason than that RCCL received each of those pmts and I would bet the buck stops with them. They were overpaid and they "misapplied" the payment and that's the story I'm sticking to!

 

Final Note: this credit card needs to be replaced as it appears fraud has been committed with it. OP has 2 weeks and that's enough time to get a new card sent to her before this TA or someone else has a field day with her card while they are out of the country.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

And a police report will be filed immediately. Waiting out the loonngg weekend for RCCL to send me the information of who charged my card and to what reservation and then I'll have my police office hubby give Gavelston PD a call. He'll get that filed fast ;)

 

I had NO idea it was actual fraud until yesterday. My TA explain it to me as a "glitch" and I had absolutely no reason not to trust her.

 

Yes, the CC has been canceled :) I did that while on the phone with my bank about the dispute information! If I don't get the new card in the mail before our trip it's not a big deal thankfully.

[918baker]

Your best options at this point:

 

1. See if RCCL helps you out of this. If they offer you obc take that even.

 

 

2. If TA is part of a larger travel group go over her head and let them know what happened. They likely have insurance for this stuff.

 

 

3. I would send a Facebook message to TA and tell her you need entire $1400 returned to you by end of the weekend. You will have in writing you asked for the money back one final time. Do not threaten anything in this message. She lives on Facebook so this is the best way to reach her.

 

 

4. I owned a collection company for 14 years (sold it march of 2016) and have seen stuff like this before. 99% chance your one person TA firm is insolvent and will close shop shortly. You have three ways you can go. A) Get an attorney and sue her. You can sue for the $1400 and interest. Now SOME types of fraud can be discharged in bankruptcy, but not all. I am not sure where yours would fall into on that. B) Second option turn over to DA. $1400 is going to be a low level felony since it is over a grand. This will prevent her from opening a new shop under a new name. DA will try and get restitution, but may take a long time. C) Scorched earth. Torch her on Facebook, yelp, google and any other sites you can think of. Contact BBB and crush her. Use her real name on reviews and ruin it. See if that pulls her out of hiding. She might find it easier to just write you a check to go away.

 

 

I hate that this has happened to you. I still think you will end up ok for you. You said your husband is a police officer. What game plan is he wanting to do?

 

 

Husband is ready to file a police report and fly to Galveston :o:D I do have her address.... as in personal home address.

 

I'm planning on contacting her parent company on Monday. Just simply don't want a migraine on my 30th birthday. I have the day off from work so I'll have plenty of time to sit on hold. I've sent her SO many FB messages, to her biz page and her personal page (we're acquaintances through husband's PD. Her father in law was an officer killed on duty while K was a rookie. So we met at all the fundraisers and gatherings)

 

It's not worth the lawsuit for me I don't think. I haven't decided. We'll see if it gets to that point :) It's possible that K will want to pursue to the DA's office. I'll let him handle that one!

 

I will DEFINITELY be scorching the earth either after she's been removed from my cruise reservation or after our return. I have a lot of keyboard warrior friends haha I will burn it all down.

[918baker]

But did your dispute involve fraud or was it just a typical RCCL accounting/posting error??

 

It appears (not definitively confirmed yet) that the OP's Sept payment was applied to someone else's Cruise account. If final payment is typically 90 days out then this person has already Cruised. But since all three pmts on the OP's credit card stmts show as RCCL charges the OP had no reason to think this was anything more than an accounting error and inadvertent overcharge needed to be refunded.

 

The outcome will be interesting, I would encourage 918baker to contact Christopher Elliott at Elliott.org to have their advocates assist her if this is not resolved next week. She has a long paper trail at this point to both the TA & RCCL. Elliott writes for all the major travel industry publications, plus WSJ & USA Today. His consumer advocacy teams assist at no charge as long as the person has done all the hard work and has the paper trail to prove it.

 

Keep us updated!

 

Ask an Advocate for help here:

http://elliott.org/help/

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I will contact them on Thursday if RCCL and the TA are unable to come to a resolution. I've done as much of the hard work as I'm able :D I just want her off of my friggen reservation so I can have full control of it and know what's actually going on!

 

All I know from the CS rep was that the amount was applied to a reservation that I do not own. I assume it was fraud by the TA. Probably a 0.001% chance that it was an RCCL glitch of the century.

[918baker]

OP needs to go through any written communication they had with the TA about the payment in September, and find some kind of evidence that they said they had contacted Royal, and what exactly was said, and by who.

 

It's entirely possible that the money is floating around over at Royal somewhere, now that they have located the credit card transaction and are investigating, that is still a possibility. Royal did not say outright that the payment had been applied to someone else's cruise.

 

OP are you even in Texas? Or is this an across state lines issue? I think that makes it federal doesn't it?

 

 

I'm not in Texas, I'm in Arizona. I have a couple of messages about the Sept charge but most of it was over the phone. Sigh. RCCL did say over the phone yesterday that the money was applied to another reservation, but wouldn't tell me any other information since I have a TA on my account.

[918baker]

I assume your TA still has your cc #. If you haven't already you should really report the card as stolen and have a new one reissued. While you're doing that explain the whole situation & why you didn't dispute the charge back in September and ask if there's any recourse to get your money back.

 

 

The new card is already on it's way! Thank goodness. The not so helpful people on the phone yesterday were just reading cue cards for the most part. Going to go into the bank on Tuesday and see if sitting down with a banker will help. Maybe a phone call from them to elsewhere in the company will result in quicker resolution.

[nolimits]

Entering a dispute with a vendor and a claim of fraud are 2 different things.You only discovered the charge was not pd to your cruise acct till recently,I would believe your card would be Insured against Fraud

And Happy Bday

[918baker]

Do read them but your situation is a bit more complicated I would rather you immediately reach out to Chris Elliott's organization and see if they can't pressure RCCL to do the right thing. You have the written proof they require assist.

 

Please see my post # 194 (they will only help if you ask for assistance)

 

http://elliott.org/help/

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Should I contact them now? Or wait until I have more information from RCCL about who charged to card and to what reservation?

[918baker]

Entering a dispute with a vendor and a claim of fraud are 2 different things.You only discovered the charge was not pd to your cruise acct till recently,I would believe your card would be Insured against Fraud

And Happy Bday

 

 

Ooh I hadn't even thought about it from that angle. Thank you!!

[JVilleGal]

You know you could send your TA a message thru FB or how ever you have communicated ....

 

Giving her until Noon Monday to correct this "misapplied credit" with RCCL as her continued refusal to answer your calls or those of RCCL lead you to believe that a Fraud has been committed (a Felony) which WILL be reported to the Galveston Police and the District Attorneys office at 12:01pm Monday.

 

How bout that??

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[JVilleGal]

Should I contact them now? Or wait until I have more information from RCCL about who charged to card and to what reservation?

 

 

They have inside contacts I can't see at this point you have anything to lose so that they can get right on it. They will need your email chain and screen shots of online conversations. I alerted the team you may be coming. I thought this was going to be easily fixed last week before you found out that your card had been applied to someone else's cruise. And now RCCL is dragging their feet. They should have been all over this....

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[918baker]

They have inside contacts I can't see at this point you have anything to lose so that they can get right on it. They will need your email chain and screen shots of online conversations. I alerted the team you may be coming. I thought this was going to be easily fixed last week before you found out that your card had been applied to someone else's cruise. And now RCCL is dragging their feet. They should have been all over this....

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

Just submitted the longest form known to man. I hope their system keeps the paragraphs in place when it submits.. I know some forms don't. That would be a nightmare to read without paragraph breaks hahaha :o

[JVilleGal]

:)

Just submitted the longest form known to man. I hope their system keeps the paragraphs in place when it submits.. I know some forms don't. That would be a nightmare to read without paragraph breaks hahaha :o

I'll go check! Everyone there are volunteers but someone will get back to you.

More wine tonite for you girl!

[918baker]

:)

I'll go check! Everyone there are volunteers but someone will get back to you.

More wine tonite for you girl!

 

 

You are seriously the best. I need to send YOU some wine!! Tonight at our gym they have parent's night out, so I'll be kid and husband free for 4 hours (hubs is taking his dad to the airport, woohoo). Planning on walking from the gym to Olive Garden and then walking to the movie theater to giggle like a teenager at a comedy. Best way to end my 20s!

[JVilleGal]

You are seriously the best. I need to send YOU some wine!! Tonight at our gym they have parent's night out, so I'll be kid and husband free for 4 hours (hubs is taking his dad to the airport, woohoo). Planning on walking from the gym to Olive Garden and then walking to the movie theater to giggle like a teenager at a comedy. Best way to end my 20s!

 

 

This will eventually all work out and then you will have a priceless story to tell your grandkids :)

Have fun and I sure wish I was 30 again!

Be patient the Elliott people will reach out. Tell them JVille sent you 😊

[918baker]

This will eventually all work out and then you will have a priceless story to tell your grandkids :)

Have fun and I sure wish I was 30 again!

Be patient the Elliott people will reach out. Tell them JVille sent you 😊

 

 

They already reached out for documentation :) I hope all of the messages copied correctly.... there was a LOT of them. Poor guy that has to read through alllllll of it. I did name drop :D:D

[JVilleGal]

I gave Dwayne the abridged version this morning :)

[WhenIsLobsterNight]

You know you could send your TA a message thru FB or how ever you have communicated ....

 

Giving her until Noon Monday to correct this "misapplied credit" with RCCL as her continued refusal to answer your calls or those of RCCL lead you to believe that a Fraud has been committed (a Felony) which WILL be reported to the Galveston Police and the District Attorneys office at 12:01pm Monday.

 

How bout that??

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

You can't do this option. She would be trying to settle a civil dispute under the threat of not making a criminal complaint. This is a big legal no-no and could backfire on her. In other words, she could end up in legal trouble.

[JVilleGal]

:)

You can't do this option. She would be trying to settle a civil dispute under the threat of not making a criminal complaint. This is a big legal no-no and could backfire on her. In other words, she could end up in legal trouble.

 

 

Well I'm no lawyer, obviously, but THAT is exactly what I would do. Give her one final opportunity to fix it and know the truthful consequences if she does not. If that got me in trouble, though I don't know why it would, then so be it. I just find it unlikely!

 

It's not a threat but rather the truth about her options. Besides there is no Civil Dispute YET....

Edited February 18, 2017 by JVilleGal

[918baker]

I gave Dwayne the abridged version this morning :)

 

Goodness gracious I owe you HUGE. I think he has all of the info he needs, I sent over buckets and buckets of it. Off to wine and a movie for some much needed alone time!

 

Thank you thank you thank you for everything. I can't believe this situation. It's unreal.

[JVilleGal]

Sadly it's very real.... unbelievable but real!

 

Have fun and hugs!