MFF: The Bad Part

[vakkotaur]

[UPDATE (16 Dec 2005): This issue appears to be resolved.]

At MFF this year when I tried to register, I was told that I was not pre-registered despite my having sent payment a couple months in advance. I wound up having to pay the at-the-door entry fee for the regular registration, which was annoying as I'd sent payment for the sponsor level registration. As I'd not received the 2005 registration post card, it was assumed that my payment had been lost in the mail.

After MFF I found the receipt stub for the money order and took it to the post office. The folks there took it and ran the number and told me that the money order had never been processed. That was annoying, but at least an explanation. At least I could fill out the form (and pay a few dollars more...) and start the process of getting my money refunded.

Today I got a letter from the United States Postal Service and it was not a check refunding the unprocessed money order. Instead it was a letter with a scan of the front and back of the processed money order. That USPS goofed on the initial assessment is disappointing but not all that surprising.

MFF had cashed my money order!

Not only that, the date stamp shows that Bank One had processed it on the 22nd of August, only a few days after I'd purchased and sent the money order. I'd done that on the 18th of August.

So, for MFF 2005 I wound up paying $140 total, not actually getting preregistered, not getting the sponsorship registration for which I had paid - well in advance of the deadlines, mind - and MFF had the sponsorship registration fee.

I will be taking this up with the MFF folks. The USPS letter will be scanned so it can be e-mailed. I will send physical photocopies if need be. But it will be taken up with them. I do not want any of the 2005 sponsorship materials; it's simply too late for that. At a minimum I expect a full refund of my 2005 sponsorship registration money, better would be to include the $10 extra I had to spend for doing at-the-door (I do not begrudge MFF the $30 for standard registration, but I did send payment which they received and used in August). Ideally, I'd like this screw-up erased by having it mean that I am now signed up for MFF 2007 at the sponsorship level. That's 2007 as I've already paid for 2006 and that has been processed.

Come to think of it, I never got that e-mail confirmation from duncandahusky for the 2006 registration. At least this time I got a timely post card confirming things. I hope the entry really is in the database. Naturally, I do not trust the MFF registration database right now.