💾 Archived View for tilde.cafe › ~stack › gemlog › 2022-06-13.charges.gmi captured on 2024-08-31 at 13:05:05. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-07-22)
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Say what you will about crypto, a few things about it make a lot more sense than what we have with our current banking system. Restricting the ability to send money exclusively to the owner of such funds is obvious. Anything else is absurd.
It is surprising that the current system works. Anyone can charge your account, leaving it up to you to argue with the bank. Signatures are no longer required, making it even stupider.
In practice, there are very few abuses, because banks keep an iron fist on vendors. But when things go wrong, it is very frustrating for the individual whose account is charged.
I love my morning oatmilk latte. Also a midday oatmilk latte. I make my own, and I am pretty good at it.
Sometime during the pandemic it became impossible to buy Oatley products. Oatley is the gold standard of oatmilk; any $8.00 oatmilk latte or capuccino at a decent coffee place is made with Oatley oamilk. Anyway, you couldn't buy it, and the only Amazon listing was $180 for a case of 6.
I switched to Minor Figures oatmilk, which also became unavailable immediately. I love their packaging, but Oatley is a little better. But I managed to order Minor Figures directly from the distributor, 4 cases (of 6) at a time. I think the only way to do so was to sign up for autodelivery, every six weeks. I figured I'd do it for a couple of deliveries, and cancel.
More easily said than done. A year later, dozens of emails and phone calls to Minor Figures and my bank, I am drowning in oatmilk. Oatley is now available again, and is a bit cheaper at Whole Foods than what I am charged for Minor Figures (because in the US, the dealer mafia is protected, and you cannot buy cheaper from the factory). But I just can't get my order canceled.
My password for the account has been disabled. The company sends a cheerful automated email for every email I send: thank you for your email, we will respond shortly. That's as far as it gets. The phone messages are likewise black-holed. The bank's initial investigation revealed that I committed to a recurring charge and need to talk to the vendor. Duh. The bank is conducting another investigation, but outright refuses to blacklist future charges from any specific vendor. In the meantime I am running out of space for cases of oatmilk.
To add insult to injury, the cases of oatmilk are no longer delivered to my door, but are literally left on the street, without ringing the bell or anything.
It is absolutely insane that, instead of _sending_ your money to a vendor, the vendor charges your account. Without your approval.
But these days _you_ are not the customer of the bank. You are cattle, a ticket to a bigger game played by banks.
Moral: do not sign up for Minor Figures auto-delivery. But their packaging is nice.