pete b.

I used a prepaid card which will only allow you spend what is on the card. I made two payments - the first worked fine. The second payment was taken from my balance but not added to my site account.

I spoke to Epoch's online support and the agent was able to see that the payment had been removed from my card but not passed to my account. They advised that it may be pending on their system and if so would be added to my account. If not, it would be reimbursed to my card but due to a system delay it may take up to 24 hours to go through. I waited the 24 hours but my account was not credited nor was my card reimbursed. I spoke to their online support again and the agent I spoke to certainly did not have English as their first language (or even their third language!) - I could not understand a lot of what was being said to me as it was - basically - gibberish.

Looking at my card details online with my provider I saw that they had later tried drawing funds from my card three further times that day but been declined due to lack of funds (I never keep large amounts on it in case something just like this might happen).

It's now five days later and still no joy. I have tried logging on to their support again this evening but it just keeps crashing. I know it's not my machine as every other site loads fine. I guess at this stage from reading reviews here I will count myself lucky that it was only 25 I lost and not the hundreds some people speak of here. My card is due for replacement in a few weeks anyway so I'll just put it down to experience and run from any sites in the future that use them for payment.

UPDATE:

I finally managed to get through to their online support again. I explained the situation again to the agent and was told that there was no record of any transaction on my card for the date in question. I told him that I was looking at the record of transactions on my card provider's site and then suddenly he was able to see them after all. He said my payment was declined due to lack of funds even though it showed the money being taken out. He then told me that it was a hold of funds and would be reimbursed by my card provider. I said I had been told that Epoch would reimburse my card - he then gave a phone number to call and tried to end the talk.

I asked to speak to a supervisor and had to explain everything again. He tried telling me the same as the agent had told me. When I said I could see the processing of payments he asked me to send him proof so I copied and pasted the payments records to him. After a few minutes away he returned and said he had found the payments but that I would have to get my bank to sort it out and it may take 15 days. Basically, he just wanted to wash his hands of it. I advised that as I use a prepay card, calling my bank would not be any use. I said that as Epoch had deducted the payment (as their records now proved after all) it should be up to them to deal with the issue. He just repeated the 15 day line again and struck me as just wanting me to go away.

I said that I found it a bit incredible to be getting this trouble when the first agent I spoke to on the day advised me that they could see the second payment had not been processed due to a temporary fault with Epoch's system. After quite a long absence he returned and asked me if I had a log of the calls sent to me by previous agents I had dealt with. I said nobody had ever offered it to me. After a long talk it transpired that call logs are not available to agents when you call so you have to restate everything - only supervisors and management have access to this.

Honestly, I have seen corkscrews that are straighter than the answers you get from Epoch! Never, never again!