LilMiss wanted to have her birthday party at the new BrunswickZone “entertainment center”. Cool, since her dad works there we could get a pretty decent deal - $6.99/kid versus the usual $13.99/kid. For that amount they’d bowl for 1 1/2 hours, get cash cards to play in the arcade, have their own “Hero” who actually leads the party, pizza and soda, and a nifty gift bag of stuff. I also decided to add laser tag to the party. I was told to plan on an additional 1/2 hour to the party then. I met the party coordinator two weeks ago when I was nice enough to take Emo (LilMiss’s dad) to work. At that time we confirmed the date of the party and the number of kids attending. She stated the gift bags would be made up of certain types of stuff, but nothing else about them. Last week I emailed her three times with kids’ names and shoe sizes. I spoke with her to confirm she received the e-mails. She gave me the total price for the party, just shy of $100.00.
Day of the party arrives. LilMiss says it was the best party she has ever had. She is slightly bummed that there weren’t any gift bags though. Why no gift bags? The party coordinator said I was to have come in last week and select the items. No one told me that! In our e-mails and phone convos NOTHING was said about it. I reread through the nifty folder and there is NOTHING in there about contacting the coordinator either. Well, fuck. I paid for something I didn’t receive. Oh, but since I got a great deal on the party itself, I shouldn’t mind too much. She did say IF she had time she’d try to put some bags together. Every time I saw her after that she was at the bar. Sigh. Emo was no use in that regard. “I’ll go talk to her” and then he just stood there. Putz.
LilMiss was also slightly bummed that the game cards only had $2.00 on them. I was told $4.00. Uhhhh… was the response from the Hero, who then scuttled away with my charge card. Oh, and the 30 minutes for laser tag? Try 8 minutes of play. The last 15 minutes of the party consisted of kids wandering around without $$ to play games and nothing to do.
Here’s the best part. That night I pulled up my bank account. There’s a pending charge for $119. Hmmm, that’s not right. Called the bank on Monday, was told not to worry since it’s just pending. Could be they did the initial charge incorrectly and will fix it. Today I look at my account again. The $119 is STILL pending. AND they put through the correct charge of almost $100. Crap. Cable bill is supposed to go through today and I don’t have the money to cover it with the pending charge crediting against my available balance. Call the bank again. My choice? Call Brunswick to see if they’ll contact my bank and retract the pending payment or leave it until it falls off. What if cable bill goes through? They’ll cover it no charge (since my balance at the end of yesterday does NOT include the erroneous $119), but my available balance will be negative. Meaning I will not have any access to money in my checking account. Meaning I’m screwed.
Okay. This is the company who has YET to figure out how to send in child support. Emo and our child support worker have contacted them multiple times to get it straightened out to no avail. [Child support is another rant entirely]. And I’m supposed to hope they’ll contact my bank to reverse an erroneous charge? Yeah right.
SO, I paid for stuff we didn’t get, was charged for more than twice the cost of the party, and if I want it corrected I’m supposed to call the company who fucked it up in the first place.
Fuck you.