we're sorry for the inconvenience

Have you ever noticed that when someone claims to be sorry for the inconvenience, they're usually not? When they say that they're just trying to protect you, they're usually trying to protect themselves?

Today, I made plane reservations for our fall trip -- three legs on two different airlines. For some reason, the more expensive charge went through, but the less expensive charge, for a flight from Athens to Barcelona, triggered a fraud investigation.

The reason given was that although I live in Boston, I was doing business with a company whose USA headquarters is in Miami. (Of course, I did the transaction over the Web, so I'm not sure how I was supposed to know where the company was based.)

The credit card company was sorry for the inconvenience (a phrase that the woman I spoke to had apparently been trained to say about fifty times a minute), but they had denied the charge, simple as that. And they couldn't reinstate it, either. They were sorry for the inconvenience, but I had to deal with the airline myself. Apparently, they don't provide that "service," but they *were* sorry for the inconvenience, and they were just trying to protect thems-er- me.

It really didn't matter to the woman I spoke to that I might not be able to reach the airline for at least 24 hours, which could possibly invalidate my travel plans. She was sorry for -- well, you get the general idea. And no, they couldn't have just put the charge on hold until they talked to me. I had triggered a fraud investigation, which caused them to cancel my charge. Plain and simple.

Oh, and I had to answer a bunch of questions about other recent charges I made, though I'm not sure why saying that yes, I had spent my own money using my own credit card convinced her.

(It turned out that I was able to reach the airline. They were really quite lovely and also quite competent, thankfully.)

Sorry for the inconvenience of having to read this. I'm deeply sincere about that.