Man that really sux. I have been in a similar situation with DirecTV. They had a company that handled the selling of THEIR equipment but when I had a problem they said, "oh that company doesn't represent us just sells our stuff. It isn't DirecTV's fault." Of couse the other company said, "We only sell equipment not service that is DirecTV's fauilt." Well about a month worth of time and a butt load of aggravation I finally talked to someone in the president's office of DirecTV and got it handled.
My point is this: Even though it may have been Mandrake's payment company who messed up Mandrake it seems could have still had better customer service. He got a recording and could not talk to a person for help. That should not happen. Here is one of my problems with how I see that Linux systems are run. With it being open source and stuff who in the end is responsible? I admit I don't know all the ends and out of it but...this seems to be one of the disadvantages to the system.
I am sure glad they got it fixed for you though, man.