a wwyd, or really a vent...

[lillygator]

Ok, here is the scoop.

DH and I went out to dinner Friday night. On the way home we stopped at another restaurant for a drink. There is a bit of a history here….this is a place we used to frequent every week, and before I met DH he went every night after work, as it is in the same plaza as the store he managed. So, he has been going since they opened, knows the owners well, even has his name on the bar. Now they have 5 restaurants between two cities here and over the years – changed more to a family restaurant and not the party place they were. Friday night was a throwback night, because back in the day on Friday night they would clear out tables on one side of the room, have a dj and you could dance. The owners were tending bar, they were giving out prizes, staff was dressed in 80’s/90’s gear etc - and it was pretty busy. We arrived and stood by the bar, ordered a drink (one bud bottle and one house chardonnay) and decided to pay with my debit card instead of running a tab – we didn’t plan on staying long, just long enough to say hi, etc. We were watching the Drays/Indians game and people watching. DH had another beer, which I paid for again with my card, and then I had another wine, which I again paid for with my card. So – in total – three separate transactions. Silly, but whatever. We ended up with several gift baskets courtesy of our friends and left. Was a great evening all around.

Imagine my surprise on Saturday morning when I log into my bank account to see those three transactions as well as a fourth. The three were fine but the fourth was for almost $1,400. I was in shock and overdrawn. I got there when they opened and luckily took my laptop with me. In the two hours and ten minutes I spent there…the manager found the three slips all with either mine or DH’s signature, all three to which I am in full agreement that we charged those. He could not find the other one. He was not the most competent manager, as he was on the phone with their bank as well as their register software company to try and figure anything out. I asked if he could search using that amount and he said that would be a whole different process….so no receipts, but – in my mind – there may be a transaction in the system as their register and cc system is one in the same, no separate cc machines to swipe in. He ended up giving me a credit. So I left with a receipt that showed the amount in negative. (and this entire time I was nice, polite, refused their offer for lunch, the owner came in and apologized and told me the mgr would handle everything)

It is Wednesday, and I am still without the credit (or the charge being dropped). All three transactions went through and are “cleared”, the $1400 amount shows as “processing”. This is my checking account and I usually leave about $40 floating in it, so now I am still overdrawn and have 4 o/d charges (which the bank will refund if the credit comes through or charge drops)….I could transfer funds from savings but I don’t want to do that. This was their mistake…they need to make it right. I get paid tomorrow, and that is the day most all my bills come out (via online setup and at this point). I know when it shakes out the bank will refund any fees, but I am pissed…..I haven’t been able to use my account all weekend…..it isn’t just like transferring $100 in to go grocery shopping, I have to cover that $1400, then additional. So I need to go stop all my bills from coming out I guess.

Am I being unreasonable in being mad? …I feel at a loss, I know things take time to process, but seriously, if I had no other accounts to use, I would have been sol, and more so, tomorrow. I can report it stolen which was my intent this morning if it hadn’t been taken care of – which I was pretty confident that it would have all been cleared up by today. IDK what I can do to expedite this process…the bank can’t “see” the credit being issued…..the restaurant can’t “see” a charge yet it is clearly on my account.

Sorry – I guess this is mainly a vent….I have always used my debit card for everything….always, and never had an issue, you can bet now, I will be taking out cash once a week.

 

[sunnyday123]

Credits take longer to show up than a debit. They have 30 days ( his processing bank) to process and have it applied to your account.

 

[foolishmortal]

I have had a simliar thing happen more then a couple times, and all I can say is sorry. It takes time from thier bank to credit and process then feed to your bank to credit and process. It's not a 1 or 2 day thing. In fact in my cases it took 2 weeks. Follow up with your bank and ask if they have receieved anything yet.

 

[Christine]

I may have missed this in your post but did you call your bank right away to report the fraud or did you just try to work it out with the owner of the club? In my experience, when I reported it to the bank right away, I was not "frozen" with my cash.

Second, a friend recently told me not to use my debit card and restaurants, bars, etc. There is something about how much easier it is to fraud with a debit card at these types of establishments over a credit card. I never asked for specifics but she's a smart person so I believed her and never use by debit card at a restaurant now.

 

[FireDancer]

I may have missed this in your post but did you call your bank right away to report the fraud or did you just try to work it out with the owner of the club? In my experience, when I reported it to the bank right away, I was not "frozen" with my cash.

Second, a friend recently told me not to use my debit card and restaurants, bars, etc. There is something about how much easier it is to fraud with a debit card at these types of establishments over a credit card. I never asked for specifics but she's a smart person so I believed her and never use by debit card at a restaurant now.

It isn't so much easier to commit fraud with a debit card, it is just that the effects of it are more immediately felt by the victim. If someone puts $2,000 on a debit card you are immediately out that $2,000. While the money will be replaced if it is fraud you will have a $2,000 shortfall until it is. If someone puts a $2,000 charge on my credit card I am not out that money until I pay the bill. It is just electronic money and doesn't effect the actual cash sitting in my account under most circumstances.

Also, many times the reason people don't use debit cards for restaurants, hotels, or rental cars (along with some other industries) is because there is usually a built in tolerance factor of 15-20 percent for those industries. If you have a $100 meal and present a debit card for payment it will usually be authorized for $115 or $120. If you are going to add tip onto the card that doesn't usually matter. If, on the other hand, you choose to tip with cash you now have a $15 or $20 dollar authorization sitting on your account which many times means those funds are not available.

If anyone allows their balance to get very low that $15 or $20 (especially if it is compounded by multiple tolerance authorizations) authorization can cause things to bounce.

OP, I hope it gets straightened out soon, I know I would be mad if I were in your shoes.

 

[lillygator]

I did call the bank right away, and since they were processing a refund, we - as in the bank and I decided to wait through the weekend to see if it would all process.

I know they have 30 days, but any time I have ever gotten a refund on my debit, it hasn't taken longer than 3 days - even from Disney, it usually goes through pretty quickly.

 

[ajk912]

Ok, here is the scoop.

DH and I went out to dinner Friday night. On the way home we stopped at another restaurant for a drink. There is a bit of a history here….this is a place we used to frequent every week, and before I met DH he went every night after work, as it is in the same plaza as the store he managed. So, he has been going since they opened, knows the owners well, even has his name on the bar. Now they have 5 restaurants between two cities here and over the years – changed more to a family restaurant and not the party place they were. Friday night was a throwback night, because back in the day on Friday night they would clear out tables on one side of the room, have a dj and you could dance. The owners were tending bar, they were giving out prizes, staff was dressed in 80’s/90’s gear etc - and it was pretty busy. We arrived and stood by the bar, ordered a drink (one bud bottle and one house chardonnay) and decided to pay with my debit card instead of running a tab – we didn’t plan on staying long, just long enough to say hi, etc. We were watching the Drays/Indians game and people watching. DH had another beer, which I paid for again with my card, and then I had another wine, which I again paid for with my card. So – in total – three separate transactions. Silly, but whatever. We ended up with several gift baskets courtesy of our friends and left. Was a great evening all around.

Imagine my surprise on Saturday morning when I log into my bank account to see those three transactions as well as a fourth. The three were fine but the fourth was for almost $1,400. I was in shock and overdrawn. I got there when they opened and luckily took my laptop with me. In the two hours and ten minutes I spent there…the manager found the three slips all with either mine or DH’s signature, all three to which I am in full agreement that we charged those. He could not find the other one. He was not the most competent manager, as he was on the phone with their bank as well as their register software company to try and figure anything out. I asked if he could search using that amount and he said that would be a whole different process….so no receipts, but – in my mind – there may be a transaction in the system as their register and cc system is one in the same, no separate cc machines to swipe in. He ended up giving me a credit. So I left with a receipt that showed the amount in negative. (and this entire time I was nice, polite, refused their offer for lunch, the owner came in and apologized and told me the mgr would handle everything)

It is Wednesday, and I am still without the credit (or the charge being dropped). All three transactions went through and are “cleared”, the $1400 amount shows as “processing”. This is my checking account and I usually leave about $40 floating in it, so now I am still overdrawn and have 4 o/d charges (which the bank will refund if the credit comes through or charge drops)….I could transfer funds from savings but I don’t want to do that. This was their mistake…they need to make it right. I get paid tomorrow, and that is the day most all my bills come out (via online setup and at this point). I know when it shakes out the bank will refund any fees, but I am pissed…..I haven’t been able to use my account all weekend…..it isn’t just like transferring $100 in to go grocery shopping, I have to cover that $1400, then additional. So I need to go stop all my bills from coming out I guess.

Am I being unreasonable in being mad? …I feel at a loss, I know things take time to process, but seriously, if I had no other accounts to use, I would have been sol, and more so, tomorrow. I can report it stolen which was my intent this morning if it hadn’t been taken care of – which I was pretty confident that it would have all been cleared up by today. IDK what I can do to expedite this process…the bank can’t “see” the credit being issued…..the restaurant can’t “see” a charge yet it is clearly on my account.

Sorry – I guess this is mainly a vent….I have always used my debit card for everything….always, and never had an issue, you can bet now, I will be taking out cash once a week.

omg, I am so sorry, you have every right to be incredibly upset about $1400 being missing from your account. I would want to know WHY as well, did they have an open tab and just charge it to whatever? How did that even happen? How can they even charge to a card after the fact like that, I know the restaurant/bar I worked at it was a huge deal trying to find a credit card number after the fact to charge to, once the check was closed out. Unless they did it early on- odd. Yes, I would be really mad.

 

[shortbun]

I don't understand why you wouldn't cover yourself to avoid the future hassle-two items, a deposit then write your savings a check and all is well-no overdraft fees to worry about-voila. Why refuse to do that? Seems like cutting off one's nose to spite their face.

 

[lillygator]

I don't understand why you wouldn't cover yourself to avoid the future hassle-two items, a deposit then write your savings a check and all is well-no overdraft fees to worry about-voila. Why refuse to do that? Seems like cutting off one's nose to spite their face.

I will end up doing that today (heading to bank on my lunch), I am just PISSED, this was not my mistake...whether someone at the restaurant stole it or not, this is their fault.

 

[ajk912]

I may have missed this in your post but did you call your bank right away to report the fraud or did you just try to work it out with the owner of the club? In my experience, when I reported it to the bank right away, I was not "frozen" with my cash.

Second, a friend recently told me not to use my debit card and restaurants, bars, etc. There is something about how much easier it is to fraud with a debit card at these types of establishments over a credit card. I never asked for specifics but she's a smart person so I believed her and never use by debit card at a restaurant now.

I used to manage a restaurant. The examples that were most prevalent, and they are all wrong (some illegal) were times when the server accidently swiped the credit card on the wrong check or multiple checks. Usually an accident (it may have happened in this case, the bartender attached her credit card to someone else's tab, if they swipe the cards right away and accrue from there) OR..the worst type of fraud..was since the servers leave with the credit cards in most times, they have the opprotunity to write down credit card numbers, names, and exp dates...OR.. we would call the cops and/or terminate when we caught this (easy to catch) a server would want some extra cash, so when they enter the tips from the tipline- instead of entering $10.00 they enter $100.00 and pocket $90 off some unsuspecting client. Do that with 6 people..you can easily steal $500+ in a night.

 

[Hoodie]

As others have said it can take a while for the credit to clear. Did you notify your bank right away about the fraudulent charge? If not, you could be liable for it.

As another poster pointed out, this is one of the reasons why you should use a credit card rather than debit when the card will be out of your sight. It's not so much an increased fraud risk, but rather the lack of protection on the debit vs. a credit card. As you found out, a fraudulent charge on your debit card empties your checking account, whereas a fraudulent charge on a credit card is the bank's loss and doesn't hit you directly while the investigation goes on.

This is a decent summary of the risks: http://banking.about.com/od/checkingaccounts/a/stolendebitcard.htm

I've had a credit card stolen, known someone who had a debit card stolen, and my husband works at a bank and sees this stuff a lot. Unfortunately, in all cases it too at least 2 weeks to resolve the accounts (and 3 months for my friend with the stolen debit card). Fortunately, you have the business owner working on it as well so it will likely be quicker. Hopefully it will resolve quicker, but expect 2 weeks minimum.

 

[disneyfans95]

Well you have every right to be upset, that is for sure.

We went thru an issue with our debit card being hit by an online company (Mythic, so stay away from their online games!). They tagged a ton of users upwards of $600 each.

It took us about 5 business days to see the money funded back to Wachovia, after it was handled by Mythic and the bank.

Sorry you had to go thru this.

That said, they can run a transaction report that shows all debit/credits from their terminal. The bank can tell if it was swiped or key entered also, so that is good info to know. I.e was it a mistake, did someone key enter your card number after closing etc etc.

Merchants actually get a % credit to their transaction fees if they swipe the cards

 

[lillygator]

heading to the bank now....just got off the phone with the mgr, he is working on it but now he is saying their cc company says there is no transaction for that amount?? UGH, so hopefully my bank can give me some more info.

 

[Feralpeg]

heading to the bank now....just got off the phone with the mgr, he is working on it but now he is saying their cc company says there is no transaction for that amount?? UGH, so hopefully my bank can give me some more info.

Someone may have fat fingered the transaction. More likely, it was supposed to be $140 or $14 and got put in wrong when they ran the debit card through. That would mean that their tab would show one figure and the debit another.

 

[lillygator]

well, after I left there Saturday, the mgr handed the issue off and that person got with their merchant services, cancelled the refund and was told if they didn't present the charge, that it would fall off my account in 3 business days. Which, I wish they had called me and told me.

My bank verified with them that they cancelled the refund, released the transaction and credited all the o/d fees. I still don't know what happened at the restaurant, but I am relieved all is taken care of.

Now I will be wary using my debit card though.....

 

[DWGal210]

Ugh, what a pain!!! So sorry you had to go through this!

I'll use caution now when using my debit card!