CAUTION ABOUT RED CROSS DONATIONS

[mrvark]

Shortly after Katrina hit, I made an online donation to the Red Cross. I went to www.RedCross.org and was redirected to Yahoo, who was apparently helping out with the flood of donations. However, apparently someone got their wires crossed and when I checked my charge card billing today I discovered that my account had been billed once (apparently by Yahoo) on the day I made the contribution and again two days later (apparently when the information reached the Red Cross).

I do not feel this was fraud, but a (nother) screw up caused by the magnitude of the situation. But, the story does not end there. I attempted to contact the Red Cross by both phone and Internet, but there is no way (that I could find) to address this kind of overbilling issue with them.

I called my credit card company to get one of the charges removed and was informed that if the charge is in excess of $300, their software forces them to CANCEL THE CREDIT CARD to resolve the issue because fraud is assumed (it doesn't matter that it is the Red Cross). So this just turned into a royal pain in the derriere.

If you have made a recent online contribution to the Red Cross, you might want to check your statement to make sure you haven't been double billed.

The good news for the Red Cross is that after I made my donation, my company announced they would matched contributions made through them. So, I'm going to cancel both of the original charges and make the original contribution through my company so that everyone will make out better.

Cheers,