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Sometimes I check my debit card transactions, and sometimes I don't depending on how busy I am. However, I happened to have some downtime while my daughter was in gymnastics, so I took the time to scroll through my phone and realized that Petco charged me three times for the same bag of hamster food when I ordered it online. This was obviously an issue so I called Petco to deal with it, but quickly found out they have terrible customer service. Fast forward a week and I still had no luck getting the issue resolved.
Therefore, I figured that I would call Bank of America and report the transaction, but had a bit of an uphill battle there as well. I called this number first which I found using a Google search, and a voice recording said, "We’re sorry you have reached a number that is no longer working." I tried calling again and got the same message so I had to return to Google once more. This time, I found this number, 877-366-1121 which did go through. Now I know that Bank of America probably gets a lot of phone calls as a major bank, but it took some time to get to a menu that could actually help me.
First, the automated agent asked half a dozen times for my bank account number, but I wasn't going to say it over the phone in a public place (I was on the commuter rail), so I kept saying I didn't have it. Finally, I switched to saying I wanted to file a claim and that seemed to trigger something within the system to let me get onto the next step. Instead of repeating that it needed my access ID or account number, it said, "Okay, are you calling about a new claim? For the status of an existing claim, or something else?"
Once I said new claim, it gave me a list of options including ATM charges, debit card, check, fee, Zelle, and electronic funds transfers. I chose debit card transactions, and it asked me whether I contacted the merchant yet or not. I had already, so I answered yes and the system sent me to a wait line. It took about 5 minutes to get to an agent, and it wasn't that rough because the hold music was upbeat piano music which sure beats the barking dogs and ribbiting frogs over at Petco! The agent was helpful and could see the charges were duplicated, so they helped me get the pending authorizations removed.