Sherpaa just moved into a beautiful new space today in Dumbo at one of my favorite buildings. Swissmiss is one floor above us. Fangohr is one floor below us. But we needed two workstations for our developers. We went to Apple today to buy everything they needed including all the accessories. It’s no secret that we raised $1.85M a few weeks ago. So we’ve got money in the bank. The total bill was about $7000. I pulled out my Sherpaa debit card backed by $1.85M. It was declined. We called Wells Fargo only to discover we had a $5000 a day limit on the card. Nonsense. So I pulled out my checkbook, feeling like my grandmother, and wrote a check for the total. It too was declined. I called Telecheck, the company responsible for approving checks. The check was refused because it was the first check written on the account and it was a sizable check. They told me the $1.85M in the bank account had no bearing on the denial. So I complained to the manager of the Soho Apple Store telling her I’m desperately trying to give them money but they have been so far unhelpful due to both Wells Fargo and Telecheck’s algorithms. I asked them to use old-fashioned human to human communication to figure this problem out. She then calls Wells Fargo to circumvent Telecheck and is told that Wells Fargo cannot verify funds. 

So, let’s get this straight. We’ve got plenty of money in the bank. Our Wells Fargo debit cards were denied. Our Wells Fargo checks were denied by Telecheck. Wells Fargo manually denies us after talking Apple Store manager to Wells Fargo branch manager. And there’s $1.85M in the bank. This blows my mind. So tomorrow Cheryl and I have to visit the Apple Store and use two different debit cards to cover the total cost of the workstations.