Down the Memory Hole

As previously reported, I was one of the people who waited in line for the iPhone 3G last Friday, and just barely missed getting one. At the time, I was given two choices--wait to see if the store would get any more in stock, who knows when, or order one, which would arrive at the store in 3-5 days. I chose the latter, and was informed that my credit card wouldn't be charged until the phone shipped. I also get an email from "iCare", giving me a way of tracking my order. I try tracking, and it doesn't really work, but maybe it's too soon to know, they've had other problems (e.g. the bricking when people couldn't get through to iTunes), &c. On Sunday, I note that there's a pending debit to my checking account... in the exact sum of my iPhone charge. Hurrah! The not-being-able-to-track-it thing bugged me, though, and so on Monday I stopped by the AT&T store in town, and the staff, while polite, were not particularly helpful--they seemed overwhelmed by, and sick of, all of the problems that they had had with it.

So, with some help, I got the tracking thing figured out... not that it gave me any more info. It said that it had been back ordered--nothing about who was shipping it, or when. So, I'm just about ready to send a snippy email off to iCare, and checked my bank account... and the pending charge had vanished. Not credited back to my account, just gone as if it had never been there.

I mean, it was good that they undid the charge so that the funds had never been taken out in the first place, sort of. And it's not like I'm going to wither away for lack of a new toy; originally, I hadn't even planned to get one until August, until I found out that I was eligible for an upgrade thirty days before my original contract expired. And we shouldn't rest our happiness on material things, etc.

But still. Count me in with the "Apple and/or AT&T screwed this one up royally" crowd.