All Clear

Di spent this morning and some of the afternoon taking a group of school kids from Phoebe's class - rock pooling. They were all behaved, unlike the bunch I had the pleasure of hanging out with the other week. They were all girls, however and approximately 5 rather than 11 which probably explains why. Sadly, the rock pools had little in the way of exciting wild life in them, which was a shame as Phoebe had a brand new net for catching fish and shrimps that she had no chance of using. The tide was also on the way in, which put a premature end to the search for various fauna.

Apparently the highlight of the day was the man in the park who has spent the morning laying new concrete paths only for the whole school, and indeed several other schools to turn up and run through his pristine but wet concrete. Naturally, Phoebe was culprit in chief but to be fair there were no cones or tape to isolate the area, and when you're 5 and full of bounce, hopping, skipping and jumping along newly laid concrete is fair game. The workman was rather a grumpy sort, but was given short shrift by a number of parents and their respective charges.

While all this fun was happening, I stayed at home and took a mock exam in an attempt to become Zend Certified. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had actually managed to achieve a pass, although some areas were rather dodgy. More swatting is most definitely required, particularly in the areas I've not really had much experience with, such as XML and OOP.

Another look at the bank account today, revealed that Whitfools had apparently finalised their charges, and we now have two that total the correct amount. It wasn't until later this evening that we actually got an email reply (so much for the promised phone call) which left much to be desired and basically blamed the bank for all the problems:

Many thanks for your email.

Please note you have not been overcharged for this order.

At the time of placing an order, a holding authorisation is placed on your card to confirm that there are sufficient funds for the order total (which was $287.20).

From your transaction history it appears that the authorisation process was completed but for an unknown reason the transaction amount of $272.84 failed, meaning that these funds were left 'held' on your card. A second successful transaction attempt was later made. We apologise for this technical error and can only assume that the card processor was unable to complete your transaction due to the high volume of orders being submitted to our website.

Authorisations generally take about 10 days to be released, but may be longer, depending on the type of card used/bank. If you have any further concerns, please contact your bank and do get in touch if I can be of any further assistance.

Not a particularly satisfactory answer, especially as the second transaction bloody well did hit our account. Bunch of muppets. Moral of the story is do not order anything from Whitcoulls web site.

Reflecting on this fiasco a little more, I can't actually see much point in having a visa debit card, if this is the polava it creates. The only difference between a visa debit and the EFTPOS card we also have is that it can be used online. I am beginning to regret not taking out the offer of a pukka credit card, which would I suspect have avoided this aggravation. It's not like the debit card is free, either.