Yup. For all you know, the florist went under and someone stole their records, minus CC numbers, out of the garbage and is trolling old orders looking for someone soft-hearted. Or they’re still really fucking disorganized and may well put your new CC info in the garbage, unshredded.
& does your friend ever remember receiving the flowers?
I don’t think I’d pay. I rarely use my credit card & would notice if a charge hadn’t gone through.
I’m all for making good on any unpaid debts, but this would smell awfully fishy to me, for reasons that others have already pointed out. If I or they could somehow verify that (1) the flowers had indeed been sent and (2) the credit card had neglected to be charged, I’d send them a check. Otherwise, I’d just forget about it.
It does happen. In 1993 I took a job with a hotel in the Florida Keys which in six months had FOUR different owners. They hadn’t processed credit cards for six months and they hadn’t done no shows for a year. When I was hired they told me the books were a mess and that is why they wanted to hire me
They asked me to put these cards through and I told them, "you know what a MESS this is going to be. People think they paid those bills already. The GM told me, “Go ahead and put it through and see what happens. If we get it fine, if not ‘oh well’.”
We got charged back on almost all the no-shows and chargebacked on about 40% of the unprocessed legit stays.
So it was worth my time to do it, but sometimes it does happen.
If I owed the money and never got billed for it, I would pay it. But I would make darn well sure I never paid it and it wasn’t some kind of scam. If I couldn’t verify I paid it or didn’t pay it, I wouldn’t pay it. Only if I knew for sure I never got billed.
Heck once I bought a chair from Wieboldt’s Department Store in Chicago and never got billed for it. I called for a few months and they lady told me very snippy “You’ll get the bill when you get it.” OK if I ever get a bill I’ll pay for the chair 
Shockingly, a very large number of people will give you their CC number. At my job I, very occasionally, have to call someone up and say ‘I’m Lurker from Hotel X, you’ve never heard of me but I need your credit card to pay your bill.’ In 2 years only once has someone even sounded suspicious.
I hate doing it because a) it means both the salesperson and myself have let a function start without a valid credit card or credit account and b) I sound like a huge scammer.
“It didn’t go through two years ago”
“Then I guess you should’ve contacted me two years ago” click
second this.
Or- if it’s a local place why not stop by in person and find out what’s going on?
Yes, there are legitimate companies that have books in such a mess that this is possible. I think I’d probably pay it if it was a real debt (I’d check my own credit card records to see if it had been processed) - I used a service, I expect to pay for it. I would discuss with them how unprofessional it is to wait two years to try to collect on debts, though - I usually work as an accounting clerk, and the first rule of business is keeping accounts current on both sides of the ledger if you want to stay in business. Hey, maybe I could get a job with them! They obviously need the help of someone like me!
If it can be verified, pay them (by check). I think all of us would accept a 26-month-old credit, so why not a debit?
(And yes, I’ve been given a credit many months after the mistake was made.)
But what if MY books are a mess? I think there is a legitimate question about how much bother and fuss one should have to go through to correct an error someone else made. If I had the time and the records were on-line, I’d go look through it, but if it were a particularly stressful time in my life where I really didn’t need another task, I think I’d be ok with blowing it off.
I agree with those above. A) never give out your CC information unless you know who it is. B) verify that the debt hasn’t been paid. If that means it’ll take a month for your bank to look up your old financial records going back 26 months, so be it. If they charge you for it, let the florist know that you’re taking that out of what you owe them. It’s not your fault, why should you pay extra because they’re a mess? C) Then send a money order or Cashier’s check. That way you don’t have to worry about them losing a check and that never clearing.
I’d tell them to drop dead. Sorry, but I’m not taking time out of my day to look up credit card records from 2008. That sounds like work to me.
I’m not the type that goes around looking for freebies or something for nothing. However, I figure the things I don’t get charged for balance out with things I get overcharged for. I don’t whine when a vending machine takes my money and I don’t get what I bought, but I don’t run to confession if I get two items either. If a grocery store forgets to charge me for the bottled water in my cart that I told the clerk about, too bad. But, I don’t make a stink if I find that there’s an item that I paid for that didn’t make it into my bag either.
I’m sorry this merchant had a mess in their bookkeeping from 2 years ago. That isn’t my fault. Too bad, so sad.
She’s already identified who the flowers were sent to by name. It’s my best friend and I have sent her flowers several times in the past. I would think I would have noticed not being debited - but it was a strange time in my life. I had just been diagnosed with Celiac’s Disease, was adjusting to a new life style, having bunches of tests, etc.
This is part of my dilemna - I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t pay. On the other hand, the total was probably about $50 and yesterday when she called, that particular account had about $10 in it. So if she had just “re-run” the card that would have been problematic.
I left a message for my friend yesterday. I haven’t heard back from her yet.
Unfortunately, it’s in Athens, TN. I’m in Charlotte, NC.
These statutes appear to be for things like credit cards and auto loans or contracted work. I am talking about a retail transaction, verbally, over the phone.
I went online to my bank, and my statements only go back through Jan 09. I would have to manually request copies for before that. And as someone pointed out, I would probably need to request several months to confirm it didn’t go through.
The phone agent told me she has been working for the bank for 10 years and had never heard of a merchant trying to process a transaction 26 months after the fact. The most she had ever seen was 6 months.
I also did some googling, and several people have stated that if the merchant has a physical imprint and/or signature for the card - then the card service would still honor the transaction well after the fact. However, this would have been a phone order, so I’m not sure if that applies. I suppose the merchant would have to have that 3 digit ID code from the back of my card.
As for what I’m going to do - I’m going to wait and see if the lady calls back. If she does, I’ll deal with it then. Thanks everyone for your input.
This is exactly what I was going to say.
But, melodyharmonius, if your conscience can’t handle it and you feel you must pay this old debt, please, please, please be careful with your credit card information. Look up the flower shop’s number and make damn sure it’s really them you’re talking to. Better yet, as others have advised, forget the credit card and mail a cashier’s check.
Though I still vote for not paying it at all.
My wife was once director of operations for a company that provided a retail rental business where most transactions were done over the web. Their corporate policy was very simple; if they had to call a customer to inform them of an expired credit card they would not allow the customer to tell them their credit card customer. They’d say “Sir/Ma’am, it’s insecure to give your credit card number to someone who has called you. You should never do that. Please call us back, or use the web to update your information.” People would fight them, constantly, over that. They simply did not get why it’s a bad idea to give someone who’s called you your CC info.
At least once a month, someone would MAIL THEIR CREDIT CARD IN. I shit you not. They’d mail in their goddamned Visa or MasterCard or Amex with a note saying “Please update my account and mail this back.” Swear to God.
I am reminded of the famed computer hacked Kevin Mitnick, who was arrested in the 1990s, charged, and convicted of about a zillion counts of fraud related to hacking into compputer systems. Mitnick is certainly technically skilled, but do you know what his method of getting into computers was? He’d just ask people for their passwords. He used standard, centuries-old confidence techniques. Hi, I’m Kevin from IT, we have problem X, could I get your password to fix something? Worked all the time. Credit card scammers use all the same methods today.
The biggest security problem with credit cards and identity theft and whatnot is not the hardware or the software, it’s the meatware. For all the frippery you see about how this website’s secured by blah blah blah security protocol/software, if you just use common sense you’re 99.9% of the way to protecting yourself from scammers. The con man’s easiest and most effective way of getting credit card numbers is to simply ask you for them. If one out of 100 suckers gives it up, the con man has made his profit for the day.
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Never give your credit card information to anyone who called you. There is no legitimate business enterprise on this planet that needs that information from you that quickly.
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If someone does legitimately need that information say you’ll call back with it, and then call back at a number you independently verifies belongs to the business. Don’t just call the AT&T guy back at a number he gave you; go and look up the customer service number on your bill and call THAT number.
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Carefully check your credit card statements every month.
This is where I’d stop: you did your due diligence, and it’s totally on them to prove that you didn’t pay, not on you to go requesting bank records to see if you did.
I’m also going to quote this. The first thing I thought of was “scam scam scam run away run away”.
I’d want some sort of proof that the charge didn’t actually go through. I’m all about paying debts and all, and I do believe that it’s possible that their books were in such a mess that they genuinely missed charging you, but after all this time, that’s not your problem. I think that they need to prove that they sent the flowers (or your friend needs to verify that she got them) AND that you were never charged for those flowers.
My maternal grandfather ran his own business for decades, and he ran it very sloppily. After he died, my husband and I found all sorts of notes from Grandpa to himself, saying that he needed to follow up on billing Company XYZ for the various dies that he’d sent them. Maybe he received payment, maybe he didn’t. But we couldn’t PROVE that he had never received payment. When you are are sloppy with your bookkeeping, sometimes you just have to suck up a few losses.
If you do get convinced that you owe the money, and you want to pay it, use a money order or cashier’s check. DON’T let your credit card number get into this person’s hands.
I keep very poor personal financial records. For my business finances I realize what a dolt I am and I therefore employ someone to do accounting stuff.
If she wants me to reasearch a debt that old I would. However, I would want reimbursed for my time. If the original purchase were personal I would bill for my time, and if it was through the business I would want reimbursed for time spent by the accountant.
And given the florists poor track record, I would want my $$ up front.
Just for the record, since I didn’t post it in the OP and I’m not willing for y’all to think I’m really that foolish, I had no intentions of giving her my credit card number again. If I were to pay it - I’d pay her by money order.