I try to be positive most of the time and between two great kids and a very understanding wife I manage to keep things focused on the bright side of life…most of the time. But today I am FILLED WITH RAGE!
No I didn’t get cut off in traffic, my five-year-old didn’t have a melt down and I didn’t crash on some nasty trail section.
I got to work this morning (Monday) and opened up the shop, got going on a few repairs and was looking forward to the Monday night ride, maybe I would even leave early and squeeze in a few extra kilometres of peddling before meeting the group. All good!
Then the phone rang and it was some massive corporation that handles our payment processing calling to explain that even though our machine has security and the massive banks that own the credit cards also have endless security, we have been the victim of a big credit card scam.
Sadly, we did our due diligence at the time the card was processed and because it was such a huge purchase we made sure the money was in place before handing over any product. Apparently, short of phoning the bank issuing the credit card on every credit card purchase, we are never covered because the credit card company can back out of any purchase well after the fact if they feel it’s not valid.
Ironically, this was their security failure, but they dump the responsibility on the retailer and without any say in the matter, our bank account takes a huge hit.
I am sure this happens every day and probably for far more funds than we just lost, but I look at my small town business and my little family and realize the scammer, the overcharging payment company and the billionaire banks all come out of this unharmed, at my expense and I just can’t find the silver lining on this one. Hopefully we can all learn from my very expensive mistake and at some point my blood pressure will come back to normal.
So…our misfortune becomes your gain. This Friday and Saturday everything at Swicked will be at Blow Out prices. This seems silly at such an early point in the season, but we have responsibilities and have to recover from this scam as quickly as possible. So if you were thinking of buying a bike, gear, getting some repairs done or anything else cycling related, you can help out your local bike shop and save a ton of cash all at the same time.
I’m James Durand and thanks for letting me rant, now I’m Goin’ Ridin’…
