A Colorado woman is finally getting her refund from Christmas Eve on a Cinnamon Dolce Latte that was mischarged to her...for $5,705.70. Three months after the erroneous charge, her bank account is finally right, but not after a strenuous battle that no one saw coming.
Lisa Angello, a native of Aurora, ordered herself a Christmas Eve coffee drink at Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center, expecting the customary charge of $5.70. Instead, the store within the convention center input the numbers side-by-side and brought her total to a whopping $5,707. It was an error she didn't know until the next day when she recieved one of her first-ever insufficient funds fees.
"I have never had an insufficient funds fee before. I'm very, very careful with what money is in there, how I pay my bills," Angello told The Denver Channel. "Then, I realized that $5,705.70 was the dollar amount put in twice. $5.70 and $5.70. That's a trip to Paris cinnamon dulce latte."
The fix seems simple enough. After all, hot drinks don't sell for thousands of dollars. Cold drinks, outside of a fine wine, rarely do either. Someone could simply fix the issue and move on. Unfortunately, in a digital world, that's not always so easy.
What followed was an ordeal that included calls to the Gaylord Rockies and the United Services Automobile Association. There were sympathetic ears and promises to make things right but, throughout it all, still no refund to her account. Finally, a month after the mischarge, she was assured by a Gaylord supervisor that the refund had been processed.
The USAA says they never received the refund and, while her bank initially credited her back the $5705.70, they took it out again shortly after. The caffeinated nightmare continued.
A spokesperson for the Gaylord Rockies released a statement on the situation when pressed by local stations that said, "We take customer concerns very seriously and work directly with guests to address issues. If necessary, we also provide appropriate documentation to third-party financial services or institutions to facilitate customer resolutions. As a matter of privacy, we do not comment on specific guest issues."
In the end, it was those same stations that seem to have gotten Lisa her eventual justice. After the uproar caused by this percolating conflict, the bank issued a provisional credit to her account.
"Within a couple of hours from (KMGH) contacting them, I received money back into my account as a provisional credit. So I’m actually back into the black where I can pay my bills,” Angello told the network through a sigh of relief.
Hopefully the refund remains this time. No coffee is worth $5000. Then again, it depends on how tired you are.