My “biz” (I use the term loosely) credit card statement had a $7.25 mystery charge from “NEWARK US CHICAGO IL”. I have done biz with Newark Electronics (and their HQ is in the Windy City), but not recently. Soooo, I gives ’em a call to ask WTF. Got passed from ear to ear, eventually reaching Jolanta in Credit Card Billing.
I described what I knew, she tapped in my credit card number, paused for a moment, then said “Oooooh, I know what happened!”
Turns out that they use “general account numbers” (or order numbers, or some such) for low-budget customers like me and that they recycle those numbers. A while ago it seems “the computer” started
- Assigning some no-doubt-carefully-chosen general account number to the new transaction
- Reaching into the database for, um, data
- Sending the bill to the old account holder
Oops.
She says “the programmers are working on it right now” and she’ll refund the money muy pronto.
Wanna bet that a few somebodys got mystery charges for a few kilobucks apiece?
Uh-huh…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 