Visa Card adventure

Visa Card adventure

On Sunday, March 8, my husband and I experienced one of the
most bizarre telephone conversations with the Visa Approval
Service in Jakarta. Following our decision to purchase some
furniture from a furniture shop in South Jakarta, my husband
presented the shop with his Visa Gold "preferred customer" Card.
The store, not being electronically linked to approval service,
called the Visa Approval Service.

After several minutes on the phone, the storekeeper returned
to us requesting my husband's passport number. Figuring that this
may have had something to do with the monetary crisis and bad
debts etc., my husband gave his passport number under the
assumption the transaction would now be completed. However,
another few minutes passed without a resolution.

Mr. Audi of the Visa Approval Service asked whether my husband
was a tourist or working here in Jakarta, our home phone number
and address and proceeded to inform me that the transaction would
take approximately two months to process.

Finally, we were able to connect to another Visa operator who,
in less than 60 seconds, gave approval on the transaction -- as
we had expected during our first call.

I would love to receive an explanation from Visa on the above
occurrence.

M. JULIANI

Jakarta