Take My Money, Please!

We decided it was time to get new bikes.  We bought a couple of cheap used bikes a few years ago and they are good but kind of clunky.  And pretty heavy when riding up those darned hills.

So we shopped around, first at the annual used bike sale in Cavaillon, then at the local shops.  Some of the brands here are unfamiliar so it took a while to figure out the right bikes.  We did online research, talked to our friends, took test rides.  Finally, after several days, we found bikes we liked.  Whew! 

It turned out that was the easy part.

The bikes we settled on were available through a local shop but had to be ordered online and delivered to the store.  I’m not sure why we couldn’t buy them directly at the store, but ok.  So we went online, selected the bikes, put in our credit card information and hit the button to complete the transaction.

Nothing happened.

Hm, maybe we put in a wrong digit somewhere.  Ok, let’s try again.

Rien.  But then a message popped up saying the transaction could not be completed.  After some research, we figured out that the website would not accept an American credit card.

No problem!  Let’s use our French card!  So we put that in were told that some sort of extra “3D” security step had to be completed.  This involved receiving a special SMS code on our cell phone, which of course didn’t work because we have a US phone number.  Not only was this annoying but it took several emails and phone calls to even figure out what the problem was.

Then we tried PayPal.  That always works, right?  Well, no, not if you haven’t used it in a while and it has an expired credit card.  So we updated the card info and tried again.  Nada.  After several more emails and phone calls, we learned that PayPal won’t accept foreign transactions unless you inform them 30 days ahead of time about your travel plans.

After more emails, we were advised to try a few other things:

-       Set up a French PayPal account.  That didn’t work.  Zut !

-       Sign up for a monthly payment plan for the bikes.  That didn’t work.  Merde !

-       Establish something called a “cash transfer for pre-payment”.  Guess what, that didn’t work.  Putain merde !

I keep saying that “we” were doing all this.  In this case, “we” means Val.  Anything that combines technology plus French makes my incompetence painfully obvious.  I pretty much cowered in another room while Val got madder and madder and her head started to burst into flames.  But I did open a few windows to let the smoke out.

Finally, we found hunted around on our bank’s website and found hidden there a super secret special phone number to call that would hopefully sort things out.  But they were only available until 10pm and by now it was nearly midnight so we went to bed.  The smoke had mostly cleared.

The next morning Val called the special number, which required her to enter pretty much her entire life history via the telephone keypad, then promptly dropped the phone call.  Several times.  I stood ready at the windows.

So she decided to call the international number via Skype and voila!  A live person!  Who actually solved our problem!

Now we are patiently awaiting the delivery of our bikes, while Val lays down with a cold compress on her forehead.

KVS