Card Recovered

On Christmas Eve, as planned, I went to the LL Bean website to send an email gift certificate. I had my wallet handy so I could pull out a credit card to pay. Only when I went to pull out the card I'd decided to use, it wasn't there.

OK, I thought, I had to pull it out when I made my online payment, and it's probably been sitting here right in front of me but covered by something. So I shuffled through the stuff on the desk in front of the monitor. No luck. I tried a few places in the bedroom and had no luck there either.

Then I recalled that after I'd called in the payment because I couldn't access the website, I'd used it a few days later, Dec. 15, when I went to the Eddie Bauer store at Columbia Gorge Outlets in Troutdale. I'd gotten a second fleece pullover because it was on sale a bit cheaper than the cost of one I'd gotten earlier and really liked. I thought there was a slight chance I'd taken the card and receipt from the clerk and dropped the card into the bag when I put the receipt in. The bag was being used as a wastebasket liner, and there wasn't much stuff in it. The card wasn't in it either, though.

By then I'd concluded I hadn't gotten the card back after the purchase. OK, the clerk made a small error. It's my card, and I should have made sure I got it back, but I didn't.

Of course, now it was Christmas Eve and everything was closed, so I had to wait. I checked online from another computer - don't know why I can't access my account on this one - and saw that the Eddie Bauer purchase was the last activity, which meant the card had not been stolen, at least not by someone who used it.

Today I went back to the store and asked about it. The clerk I asked checked a couple of places, and then asked someone else who might've been a supervisor. She asked what the card looked like and asked to see my ID. She checked a few spots and then went back to the office. When she came back, she had the card. Just to be sure, she checked my ID with the card right there, which was fine with me, then handed me the card. They'd been keeping it in their safe.

It's nice to know things like this can happen and other people do the right thing. It was a little scary because a lot of times a card might sit in my wallet for weeks, sometimes even months, without me using it. It would've been a real hassle if it had been stolen and used, and would've been a pain getting it replaced even if it hadn't.

My thanks to the folks at Eddie Bauer!

I would've bought another fleece pullover, but they didn't have any.