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And I thought 2009 was a bad year

The only thing I can say is 2010 is not shaping up much better. And I had such high hopes.

For starters Sylvia (my 89 year old aunt who lives with us) went back into the hospital for the 3rd time on Thursday, and I'm afraid this time she's not going to be getting out all too soon. And the day before, as Edie was turning into the gas station, she cut the corner a little too tight, and drove right into the curb blowing out the sidewall of the left front tire. $185 [the cost of the new tire] later she was back on her way again. Edie commented that the price of gas at that station was pretty good [which it was], but it ended up being the most expensive tank of gas she ever purchased.

And then today, I discovered American Express (AMEX) sided with The Golden Truffle (a restaurant in Costa Mesa where Edie and I had dinner on 11/14/2009), for which I was billed twice.

Simple logic should tell you the charge was a duplication. The charges are identical, and they have consecutive transaction numbers.

The problem is the restaurant has produced two receipts, allegedly signed by me.

Now why in the world would a restaurant give me two receipts to sign for the identical amount? If a mistake was made when entering the transaction, a legitimate vendor/merchant would simply void the transaction, and recharge the card for the correct amount. Plus it would have been down right impossible to have spent that much money on dinner at that restaurant. It wasn't that good.

There can be no other possible explanation for such shenanigans, at least in my opinion, except to defraud the customer. In this case me.

Supposedly the two receipts are in the mail so I can review them, but even if there are two receipts with my signature (which I can only assume there are), one of those receipts was not signed by me.

So today I have filed a complaint with the fraud department at AMEX to try and resolve this issue. I may even have to go and file a police complaint against The Golden Truffle, but we'll wait and see.

I'm just a little concerned AMEX won't be reasonable. After all they're the company which wouldn't give me a good will credit for the annual fee ($70) on my Starwood Preferred Credit card last April, even considering the fact I was generating over $1000 per year in merchant fees. I ended up canceling that card.

Of course this could be a back door attempt to get that $70 fee, especially since I don't use my other AMEX card nearly as much, or maybe they just don't like me.

My only consolation is my back appears to be getting better, and I'm riding pretty good. Of course at the rate things are going this year, that could all change as well.
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