God's little reminders sometimes hit hard

Yesterday I started the day thankful to finally have four days off of work, and finally able to spend time with my kids homeschooling and catching up on a bunch of other things. However, I ended up losing most of the day to an unfortunate turn of events that I believe now may have been preventable if I had just stopped and prayed about it.

Early into the morning Jim was checking our bank account and noticed an unknown charge on our credit card. Hmm, I thought it sounded vaguely familiar. I wondered if it was a promotion deal I was going to sign up for about two weeks ago online, but backed out of. I knew that I had not signed up for it, and had "abandoned ship" so to speak before I got in too deep, but not before they got my credit card number, apparently. A guy from their company even called me the next day to see if I wanted to complete my application and finish signing up for the deal. I made it very clear that I wasn't interested and wanted to cancel any service that they might think I signed up for. And that was the end of it...or so I thought. Apparently not, since there was now a charge for $79.90 on my credit card.

So I called the phone number on the charge and tried to inquire about how do get the charge credited to my account - after all, I never even received a product of any kind that I knew of. However, the only person I could get in touch with at that number was a whole plethera of foreign telephone operators in the Phillippines who said it was too late, that the 7 days to cancel had passed and that I was bound by the legal terms of and conditions of what I had agreed to. Hmmm. Sounded fishy to me, since I clearly remember backing out before signing on, and telling the guy on the phone I didn't want the service. After calling them back dozens of times and getting hung up on while on hold waiting to talk to their manager, who apparently was "on break" for over two hours, I started getting really angry. Each time I spoke with someone, the tone in my voice got more desperate, more irritated. No one would give me any information as to how I could dispute the charge, talk to a manager or get the charge removed from my account.

While all of this was going on, my husband was browsing the web for the name of the company - and he not only found it, but found hundreds of complaints from people who had gone through an almost identical ordeal to mine. Now we were both fuming - an injustice had been done, we had been scammed and we weren't going to let it just roll off our backs. Jim got on the phone and insisted this time, but to no avail. I continued to browse the web for information, and finally found a different phone number to call, this time in the US. The lady, this time not foreign, was not any more helpful, and even though she was a supervisor, was not helping us out at all and said it was "impossible" to credit the amount to us.

I could hear Jim getting more and more angry as he talked with her, so I took the phone again and gave it another try, hoping to explain things more clearly so she could understand. While I was doing this, the other phone rang, and it was a friend on the line. Jim explained to him that we couldn't chat right now, we were in the middle of an ordeal of getting out of a scam that had begun that morning and was now dragging out late into the afternoon. The friend said he would pray, and Jim hung up. As I talked to the woman on the other line, she kept interrupting me, saying there was nothing I could do. Then Jim turned to me and whispered to me "Bob said he would pray". A few seconds later the women's voice on the other line went silent, and she let me talk. I was able to clearly state what happened, and to my surprise, she said in a subdued tone that she would refund the whole amount. Tears came to my eyes as I took down the information, thanked her and hung up. We got a confirmation email today that the charge would be credited to us.

It took me a whole day of adrenaline, frustration, a few more gray hairs and perhaps even a few years off my life to realize and be reminded that a prayer could resolve this mess much quicker and more easily than my angry voice crying out injustice ever could. God forgive us for the times when we forget to let go and let God.