Are you kidding me, HSN?!

Here we are, in the midst of a global pandemic as I explain at 2:30 AM how HSN has just blatantly abused my financial well-being without caring in the slightest. I want as many people to see this as possible. Obviously not for attention, I just want people to understand what major how major companies really handle situations with average, everyday people.

Sans the ironic opening, I had to buy a new laptop recently for my job. Since my partner was unemployed recently – for obvious reasons – I am now the only working member in our family. The MacBook I had been using for years ended up with a battery failure recently and I needed to quickly find a new computer.

A few weeks ago, a colleague mentioned HSN to me and this was the first thing that came to mind when I needed to find a new device. Since our house currently runs on one income for god-knows-how-long – AND the only true source of income for ANYONE in the house is dad’s laptop – I thought the FlexPay promotion was my savior! The payments were comfortable and I knew I’d still have the income and savings to pay it off quickly. I spent hours reading through reviews on different systems until deciding on which “funky bundle” to go with.

HERE’S WHERE $H!T HIT THE FAN, THOUGH:

I decided on a 13-in MacBook Air. My recent system was an Air. I like the convenience and portability. Everything was set. I entered all my information in, it showed me the total of my first payment (with an additional $87 in tax might I add), I took a breath and clicked the checkout button. VOILA – ORDER CONFIRMED!

I excitedly inform my partner, and my leads at work to let them know I’ll be caught up with everything as soon as my new laptop arrives. Then *ding* PayPal notifies me – [$THIS COMFORTABLE BUT STILL SIZABLE AMOUNT OF MONEY HAS BEEN DEDUCTED FROM YOUR BALANCE.] – Great! Payments been processed so we’re good to go!

One hour later, “Your order has been canceled…” – What? Why? I already paid for it…. and they haven’t given me a reason why it was canceled…? Is the transaction canceled? Or course not, my money is still missing… was it out of stock? Let me login to check. Maybe it’s something with PayPal? Maybe they didn’t recognize the email address I used. It wasn’t a gmail or “well known” email hosting name due to personal security reasons. So I simply update the email to my Gmail account and use me debit card instead of PayPal this time. All of this because HSN gave no reason why the order was canceled in the first place.

The SECOND time, I immediately get taken to an error screen. “We’re sorry, we’ve decided you’re not eligible for Flex Pay.” – So you couldn’t tell me that BEFORE I placed the order? You couldn’t confirm my “eligibility” BEFORE you happily took my money? Oh but that’s not even the kicker… *** ALTHOUGH THEY DECLINED ME RIGHT AWAY ON THE SECOND ATTEMPT THEY STILL CHARGED MY CARD!!!!! ***

So now I’ve been charged twice (have the bank statement screenshots to prove it if anyone from HSN wants to @ me, and I hope you do). The order was cancelled on HSN’s side both times and they STILL took the money both times.

Then when the only person I could reach was through chat… I was informed that they are “temporary authorization charges that will go away within 30 days.”
Oh but it took y’all 30 seconds to take it out only to tell me an hour later I couldn’t actually purchase the item at that price and I’d have to pay in full, AND THEN HAVE THE AUDACITY TO CHARGE ME AGAIN.

To top that, now my bank has frozen my card due to “suspicious activity” and my internet bill is due tomorrow. So thanks for that, HSN.

Now I’m infuriated because COVID-19 circumstances have uprooted everyones lives and people are relying on the internet and remote working to get by. Yet, HSN promotes a cost friendly and convenient option of buying electronics, but will take the money and let you buy it before telling you “you’re not eligible.”

What self-respecting company carelessly charges their customers BEFORE denying them a product? Do people pay tuition to colleges they’re rejected from?

I may have been “denied” for FlexPay, but my money was happily accepted, TWICE, by your company before informing me so. And I don’t have days/weeks to wait for that and I have bills to pay so either get that money back in my account immediately or send me the dang laptop you’ve already charged me twice for!!!!!!!!!!!!