Castle Magus

Yeah, I know, I've ranted about ORCA several times before.

Here's what they do. They send you an email with a number to call. However, you don't just call that number and have someone (even if it's just a robot) answer it and then things happen from there. No, instead you have to call the number, leave a voice mail, and then they call you back from a different number "within 2 business days."[1] So, I called them yesterday concerning this issue and, to my slight surprise given previous interactions I've had with them, they actually called me back with a reasonable time frame, i.e. today. It was, however, at a point where I wasn't able to answer my phone immediately, so they left me a voice mail to call them back at a different number from before. So... I had to call them a second time, leaving another voice mail message. And then they called me back again a few minutes later from a third number, different from either of the first two. Go figure.

So, anyway, the gist is that, yes, my autoload thing did indeed fail because of credit card fraud and, yes, I'm perfectly willing and able to send them a check for the amount of the autoload (because I already knew that they wouldn't be able to just let me load the amount due onto the card itself and let them pull it from that because of whatever stupid reasons). She then told me that she'd send me an email with the details on how to do this and where to send the check. And I'm sitting there thinking "Um, so why couldn't you have just sent that email to start with and skipped all this stern, mildly threatening 'this is a serious issue and you need to pay us' phone rigmarole?"

*weary sigh + temple rub*

But here's the thing, see? When they're the ones holding on to my $20, they're slow as molasses to get the issue resolved, but when the situation is reversed, of course they jump right on that crap.

[1] - And when I mentioned this to my coworkers yesterday, a couple of them just laughed and scoffed and said, "Yeah, good luck with getting a response anytime soon." So yeah, I'm definitely not the only one who thinks ORCA's customer service is pretty shitty.

I just got another email response concerning this headache.

Hello,

Thanks for your patience while we researched this matter.

Unfortunately, we are unable to do a balance transfer to your existing card <number redacted> due to requirements for financial records. However, we can issue a new replacement card to you at no charge. Would you like us to handle this (move the funds of $18.25 to a new replacement card) and mail the card to you?

We do apologize that you initially received incorrect information and that the research was extensive and took longer than anticipated.

If you would rather speak to a representative by phone regarding this issue, please refer to occurrence <number redacted> contact me at:

*snip contact information*


This is not an ideal solution, but it will have to do I guess. At least I'll be able to get at my money again finally, rather than just having it sitting forever in limbo. If nothing else, I'll have a second spare card to use in case something happens to the new replacement card I got back in February. *shrug*

Last month, I got an email from ORCA saying that my credit card was about to expire and I needed to go in and update my auto-load setup with them, so that I could continue to have the card draw from my credit card as needed. I did just that. I went to the website and logged in, updated my ORCA card auto-load thing, and logged out. Figured that would be it.

Yesterday, I got another email with the subject of "ORCA Autoload - problem with transaction" and it had a phone number to call. I called the number yesterday and got voice mail. I called the number this morning, and got voice mail. I sent them a reply just now to the email from yesterday basically saying "What's going on here? I've called you twice now and still haven't gotten a response." Not more than five minutes after I sent that email, they called me back, so I don't know if the email is what prompted the call or if it was just coincidence.

Anyway, the guy on the phone told me that my credit card had expired and that the latest auto-load had failed and that I owed them $10 (which is the amount that I had it set to auto-load from my credit card whenever the epurse had emptied out). I told him what I said above, that I had already gone in and updated the account. I also told him that when I went in and checked on it yesterday after getting the email, I saw that the account actually wasn't up-to-date like it should have been, and so I had just completely canceled it and started a new one with the current card info (which was exactly the same as the previous card, except with the new expiration date).

He said that should fix that bit of it, but that I still owed them $10. I asked him if I could just load that amount onto the card and then they could pull it off. Alas, no, for whatever dumb stupid retarded reason, they can't do that. So now I have to snail mail them a check for $10.

What a pain in the ass. Stuff like this is exactly why I didn't want to switch to ORCA to begin with.

Saw a sign on the bus, and just doubled checked it with the Metro website.

1) They're raising the fare yet again. *sigh*

2) They're doing away with the PugetPasses, meaning I now have to get an ORCA card. *double sigh*

I didn't want to have to get an ORCA card. With that, I now have to worry about making sure the bus driver has the fare set to one-zone every time I get on/off the bus, so that I don't get overcharged for a two-zone fare (which is a very real possibility since the 266 going into Seattle in the morning and coming out of Seattle in the evening is a two-zone fare if you ride the whole trip, but I only ride it from Redmond to Bellevue in the morning and back again in the evening, which is just one-zone). Very annoying. But if I'm going to get an ORCA card, I'd better do it now while it's free, because as of Feb 1, 2010, they're going to start charging $5 for them (apparently in addition to whatever value you put on the card itself). Also, another reason I need to go ahead and do it now is because they won't be selling any more PugetPasses after Dec. 14 at all. The only bright side, I guess, is that I won't have to buy a new PugetPass every month anymore, for what it's worth. I just have to keep this ORCA thing charged up with credit or whatever. *weary sigh*

So, yeah, they're once again charging even more for inversely proportionally crappier service.

Oh, and while I'm ranting about the buses and crappy service... they put up a new time table on the pole at the stop where I get on the bus on the way home from work. They've never had a time table there before recently. And, of course, the times on this time table are completely different than the times that the Trip Planner gives for that same stop and those same buses. The times on the new time table on the pole are far more inconvenient for me than the previous Trip Planner times (which I'm guessing are now out of date). Actually, I got to looking at the time table on the sign again, and it just says "Bus So and So departs from Blah stop at these times", not that it was to arrive at that particular stop at those times, so it's not as bad as I thought. (But I had made a point to look explicitly for something like that before and didn't see it, or at least just didn't notice it. Oh well.) Not, of course, that this really matters, given that the buses never show up at the correct time for either of those time tablesthe Trip Planner schedule, at least in the evening. *deep inhale* *huge sigh*