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Well... that was offensive.
I went to place an order online. Everything went smoothly until I entered my billing information. I started getting a mysterious and persistent error. "Oops! We cannot proceed with the order with the text you have entered." I tried reentering everything I could think of, but no dice. Until, finally, something occurred to me.
My last name is "Wiener." Long story, not important right now. But I figured that maybe, just maybe, the system was blocking the word because it has taken on certain connotations in recent decades. I tried putting in my name as "Wiene r." Sure enough, it was accepted. For the address, anyway. But it was still rejecting the credit card... until I did the same thing in the "name on card" field.
It's my name, dammit. The name I was born with. It means "from Vienna." I was lucky in that I was never really teased much in school or camp for having a name that has since come to mean "hot dog," and from there, a reference to a certain body part which is vaguely like a hot dog. But I never expected that I'd get this crap when I gave my name to a computer.
If I could have gotten that item from any other store, I'd have canceled the order then and there.
(Store name withheld for a couple of reasons, but certainly not to protect them.)
I emailed customer service, partly to make sure there wouldn't be any billing issues (since the name on the card is wrong), and partly to protest. We'll see what they say.
I went to place an order online. Everything went smoothly until I entered my billing information. I started getting a mysterious and persistent error. "Oops! We cannot proceed with the order with the text you have entered." I tried reentering everything I could think of, but no dice. Until, finally, something occurred to me.
My last name is "Wiener." Long story, not important right now. But I figured that maybe, just maybe, the system was blocking the word because it has taken on certain connotations in recent decades. I tried putting in my name as "Wiene r." Sure enough, it was accepted. For the address, anyway. But it was still rejecting the credit card... until I did the same thing in the "name on card" field.
It's my name, dammit. The name I was born with. It means "from Vienna." I was lucky in that I was never really teased much in school or camp for having a name that has since come to mean "hot dog," and from there, a reference to a certain body part which is vaguely like a hot dog. But I never expected that I'd get this crap when I gave my name to a computer.
If I could have gotten that item from any other store, I'd have canceled the order then and there.
(Store name withheld for a couple of reasons, but certainly not to protect them.)
I emailed customer service, partly to make sure there wouldn't be any billing issues (since the name on the card is wrong), and partly to protest. We'll see what they say.