In today's mail was a letter from American Express. It looked and read exactly like the letters they send warning of the initiation of a chargeback.
The transaction in question was from last week, and was for five widgets totaling over $4000. My stomach knotted up, and is still knotted.
On orders over a certain dollar amount I contact the card company to have them contact the card holder to verify the transaction. I ask them to put it in the card holder's file that he said he authorized the purchase.
This one was by the book: I'd verified name and address, shipped to the billing address, and the charge verification department had spoken to the card holder and had noted his approval of the purchase.
When I called the chargeback department, it took the woman a few minutes to look up the case. Turns out it was just an internal procedure with American Express because of the dollar amount.
I suggested that, in the future, they preface such letters with a statement saying, "this is not a chargeback".
Whew!
