5 ms·
That's an odd interpretation of the refund. The email clearly states, > "A refund of the excess purchase..." So they'd be refunded the excess, i.e. $25. Putt
by eterm 4y ago
That's an odd interpretation of the refund. The email clearly states,
> "A refund of the excess purchase..."
So they'd be refunded the excess, i.e. $25.
Putting another $9,975 through just feels like being "too smart".
- viraptor 4y agoYou could interpret the "excess purchase" as the excess amount (so $25 refund) or as the excess purchase transaction (so $10000 refund).
- hedora 4y agoA purchase is a well defined noun, and this thing's UI was written by a lawyer that's paid to interpret US tax code. I'm 90% sure the author will end up with a $25 bond. There's a 10% chance it won't actually cancel the $9975 purchase, due to races between the probably bolted on email part and the thing that reconciles all the transactions by scanning their (emulated?) tape drive at night. Either way, it's pretty clearly a bug in the server implementation (unless this behavior is accidentally required by law, which wouldn't surprise me either...)
- OJFord 4y agoI found that ambiguous, could either read it as the excess amount or the entirety of the purchase that resulted in excess balance. But anyway it just shows more UX issues - if it's the former then why didn't the balance update to show $10k; in either case why does it accept the payment before checking? It should just say no you've hit your limit this year, or you've already subscribed $25 this year you're limit is $9975.
- Ekaros 4y agoIt is probably backed by some old mainframe system and done in batches. Earlier the post told it took couple days for 25$ to show up. So it is not real time system, but likely processed weekly, monthly or like. And all of the messes are bunched up and processed for single out come for period of time. User was just stupid not to wait a week before next attempt...
- dwighttk 4y agoWhy do they take the money before checking if they should take the money? If they waited a week they wouldn’t get the 8.5% (I believe)
- OJFord 4y ago'Cannot make further subscription while one is pending, try again later' then. But I don't see why you can't just record '25' even if it won't settle for days/weeks, and not allow >$9975 in the meantime. (If the $25 doesn't go through then fine, you just end up with $25 capacity still.) I bet it allows you to make a single >$10k payment only to reject it (on an 8-10week time frame) if it behaves like this.
- isaacgreyed 4y agoI wouldn't be surprised if the process is intertwined with a paper one as well. That adds significant complication, but it still shouldn't take it.
- OJFord 4y agoMissed the edit window, but I can't leave that - I meant 'your limit', of course. I blame Android keyboard.
- zarzavat 4y agoIt’s bad English. The unambiguous terminology would be simply “excess” or “excess part of the purchase”. The term “excess purchase” sounds like the entire purchase is excess i.e. the adjective “excess” is modifying the noun “purchase” [the purchase was excess]. But they intended it as a noun adjunct where the noun “purchase” is modifying the noun “excess” [the excess was a purchase]. But this parse is not at all preferably taken syntactically, only the semantics clue you into it. Very sloppy for a consumer financial communication, but I guess that governments can get away with it.
- msrenee 4y agoThey could purchase up to $10k in bonds. They exceeded that by $25 dollars. Each dollar or penny or half-penny is a separate portion of a bond in my mind, although I don't know how that works legally. So the excess purchase would be the $25 he was in excess of the maximum purchase. Just the way I interpreted it, but by no means the legal or actual way it's handled.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- scoot 4y agoParent is correct however. "Excess" or "excess amount" would be clear. "Excess purchase" is confusing.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y agoImagine if the email had just said "excess part of the purchase: $25". No way thy would've made that mistake.