It very often seems that when I make an expensive purchase something always goes wrong in one way or another – the camera’s flash a few weeks ago, Sky+ last year… I thought I had got lucky with my laptop and avoided any problems – I was so wrong!

The laptop is fine, it works a treat, in fact I am sitting outside in the sunny, hot garden writing this blog entry! No, the problem this time around was money.

When paying for my laptop on Thursday the first attempt to charge my debit card failed as the stores computer crashed. No problem I thought as the shop assistant assured me that I would NOT be charged and the transaction had been immediately cancelled.

Then, Saturday morning I checked my bank statement. The funds for the laptop had been debited and were on my statement in the correct way BUT a further set of funds for my laptop were “ear marked” to be debited from my account. Although this money will never be taken out, it means for up to 4 working days I will not have access to it – a nightmare considering that yesterday my final payment for my holiday in August was due!

Makes me wonder where MY MONEY actually is!

This lead to me ringing my bank and the PC retailer on countless occasions, never really getting anywhere. The closest I got was the PC Store manager cancelling the authorisation for the mistaken payment. This didn’t help.

In the end I managed to borrow the funds for my holiday, but let this be known, the PC Store have not won. They will be receiving a strongly worded letter of complaint along with a bill for all expenses incurred by myself (telephone calls, overdraft fees, etc).

Nothing ever goes right with these things!