BECAREFUL ORDERING CALENDARS OR ANYTHNG ELSE THROUGH ILIFE!!!!!

Question

I had the same problem others were having after installing iphoto 6. Not being able to get the "buy calendar" process to work, I deleted and reinstalled the iphoto app. This corrected that problem.
Next, I started the purchase of 4 calendars for over 112 dollars. Each time the process failed stating that my network connection failed this is during a time when I was using safari and seeing no dropped pages or slowdowns. I thought it might be another issue than the internet connection, so I kept trying as it requested me to do.
Guess what? Each attempt charged my credit card, till it maxxed out!!!
I am extremely upset that they charged my credit card so many times. I called and requested that they correct my credit card and the person on the phone told me to email iphoto support. Can you believe it? They abused my credit card and they want me to email in the issue?

Answer 1

I know this won't help you but thought I might give an internal perspective on Plastic Card charges. I'm a developer for a large Bank here in the UK, and i've seen a few issues (read lots) over authorizations / charges.
When you use a card in a store (online or whatever) they will request an authorization code from VISA etc. VISA pass the request onto the cardholding Bank and we return a yes or no depending on your funds. The store will then proceed or decline the transaction, but as of this point no charge has been recorded. The Banks will record a Pre-Auth charge (for us its 3 days) but until the merchant submits the actual charge we earmark the funds.
Now if the merchant does not submit the charges (as in your case) the authorizations will drop off (again its 3 days for us) but the merchant can still request the funds up to 180 days later. Also merchants can submit charges without having requested authorization (on their own head if you don't have the funds).
Now our system is such that our account holding system only holds entries that have been applied. IE only when the charge is submitted by the merchant and applied to your account. The Pre-Auth charges are held in a separate database used for authorizations.
Because of this design, the Pre-Auth charges cannot be removed until either the merchant submits the actual charge, or they drop off after 3 days.
So when our customers have this issue, what the staff do is increase your credit limit for a few days, by the amount of the ghost entries (if your an acceptable risk customer).
So yes whilst Apple are at fault for submitting the authorizations, your Bank really should be assisting you. Its their system thats causing the issues.
I'm not trying to defend Apple, its just that I can see from the internal point of view how this might occur.
However, it remains that you (as a customer) should not have to be aware of these details, the Bank should do whatever to sort it out.
Customer service really isn't that hard. Do what the customer wants, and say sorry when it goes wrong.