MTA Screwing You
Attached is a 100% real screengrab of recent transactions from your day editor's checking account. The two debits here are from an MTA New York City transit MetroCard vending machine. Actually two card machines, because the first one didn't work. And neither did the second one! There were no posted notices anywhere, but apparently it's a system-wide outage—no MTA kiosk can process any debit or credit card transactions, as a Service Alert that was just posted online this morning kind of hints at. (And now that service alert is gone!) But—as you can see—you will still be charged for trying. Ha ha ha. The MTA claims accounts will be credited after two business days, but hey, sucks to be you if you end up with an overdraft charge after you try two or three machines, right?