Postepay money-pit

The pre-paid card responsible for our woes

Postepay is a prepaid credit card issued by the Italian Post Office. It hasn’t proved itself a money-pit in the usual sense, of absorbing any amount of expenditure, but in a more literal sense.

2 of the credits we transferred onto it over the last couple of months would each, separately, have taken the balance over the limit allowed on the card.

We didn’t at the time know what the limit was. The card didn’t come with any instructions or conditions, and we misunderstood the information we’d gleaned from the internet.

The 2 credits, which together amount to over €1,000, have gone from the originating account but are nowhere to be found within Postepay.

I’ve now spent double figures of hours on the phone and in the Post Office trying to trace this money.

Each time we go over the same old weary ground, then I’m told a different story.

Today I spoke to 3 people on the phone. The first one was so rude (exclaiming “Jesus!” when I asked her to repeat what she’d said) that I asked for her name and she promptly put the phone down on me and then blocked our number for the next 15 minutes or so.

It’s possible (though I doubt it) that they sent a cheque to the address we moved from 4 years ago. This would have occurred because, although of course the application form asks for your address, they completely ignore the one you give them and take it instead from the register associated with the original issuing of your identity card.

That particular point got cleared up, but just at the moment we have no idea what’s going on and whether anyone is even trying to sort the muddle out.