I actually forgot to record two credit card related issues incurring at night on October 1st.
First, Bank of America sent me the text messages, emails and called me to verify several suspicious transactions on a vending machine, which had them suspend my credit card. Though I wasn't able to tell where those transactions were made by reading the very brief descriptions online, I assumed they were made by my son because he could buy something on vending machine at UW. However, before I confirmed with the fraud department at BofA, I had to call my son. Unfortunately, he didn't pick up the cell, then I had to call Residence Advisor on the floor of his dorm. According to the policy, RA couldn't discuss with me about my son's residence though I know my son's room number. However, after I explained this might be an emergency, she seemed willing to help. Fortunately, at that moment, my son called me back. He did use our family credit card to buy something on a vending machine in a library at UW. Not as usual, that machine didn't accept his Husky Card and he didn't know how to use the credit card on it, so swiped total of 6 times. It's why Bank of America eventually suspended the card. I asked him to explain to Residence Advisor why I called to avoid any possible confusion and I explained to Bank of America to have them remove the restriction on our credit card. Through this process, you can tell that fraud detect at bank is generally pretty sufficient.
Secondly, Hertz Sweden charged me another 140 bucks again on 9/30, so I sent Charlotte an e-mail to check what was going on. Generally, she was very responsive, but I didn't receive her response over the night while Swedes were in their business hours. So, I sent her another e-mail to follow up and offered to call her. My concern was that more charges could be coming because any ticket could be charged to the car I rented even for those not issued during the period of my possession, even worse, anyone could issue a false ticket to that car during the period of my possession. Charlotte responded to me on Oct. 1st and explained that she was on a different shift, so didn't come to work the day I sent her the inquiry. She forwarded my e-mail to their parking tickets processing team to find out. She confirmed that they shouldn't accept any false claim. She sounded a very pride Swede in Stockholm because she protected the city's reputation through her explanation. I trusted her, so would like to wait for another day before I would dispute the charge. Actually, their parking tickets department would send me all backups the following day, they seemed all legitimate but I haven't had time to sort out. The surprise possibly came from the two tickets in Oslo because the receptionist at Front Desk at Radisson Blu Scandinavia told me I could ignore them when I tried to find someone at Parking Company to explain. Now, I guess what he meant was that I needed to pay that amount of parking for two nights at that adjacent parking garage next to the hotel anyway, why bother? Yes, as I recall, the total fine on those two tickets is the total parking charge for two nights. In theory, it's not over charged. However, as I shared, going through Hertz, they charged a very high administration fee per ticket as the girl at their drop off station had warned me. I will sort this out tomorrow.
Because I would have a late conference call, I left home at 8am and didn't take Toll Lane. I stopped by Burger King to have breakfast, a gentleman around mid 60s, maybe even older stood in front of me in the waiting line before I ordered. He glanced at my Seahawks sweatshirt a second, then asked me the result of last week's game. Though, I didn't follow NFL up this season as much close as I had done in the past 15 years, I still could recall Seahawks shutting out Bears at home last weekend. I also told him that I hadn't gone to Seahawks game in person for more than 7 years because the tickets are too expensive now. The prices may be still reasonable for Season Ticket Holders but resale prices are inflated to the unacceptable levels. He agreed. However, my gut told me he was testing me. Their are so many fake fans of Seahawks football because of its popularity now. An immigrant like me wearing a Seahawks' shirt might be questionable at his eyes. He didn't know I learned football at age of 21 when I watched Hurricanes' practice, though I didn't understand it then; I watched Illini and Bears' games several times in late 90s, though I wasn't very interested in them; I became a diehard Seahawks fan during Holmgren's era.
After sitting down, we happened to be next each other, he asked me if I was interested in a BK Scholar Promotion at Burger King, I just noticed it. Then we talked about retirement and politicians. Though we didn't agree to each other's opinions exactly, it was still a very pleasant conversation. At the end, he said that he would like to chat with me if we happened to be there again, I told him that I eat the breakfast at this restaurant every Friday. It's not necessarily true at that moment because I had eaten breakfast there irregularly but I did plan to start eating there every Friday going forward because I have a more flexible and causal schedule on Friday. I am not sure I experienced Deja vu, the charge for my breakfast was cancelled on my credit card online statement. I just double checked, it wasn't there. Did he pay it for me? Is he the owner of that restaurant? Or is he someone living or owning business in that area, for a reason, doing it after our conversation? I could be dreaming totally. It might be just an error.
Our CUMT US Alumni Group scheduled a discussion at 6:00pm. I was on my way home then but glanced alumni's chats from time to time while filming a scene on Freeway to share and popping a voice message. After arriving at home, I joined the discussion by punching the Chinese characters. It was a very constructive discussion. It ended up that I self recommended myself to be the liaison for Northwest Region.
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