Charged $20 for a soda, what to do now?

[snoopy5386]

About 10 days ago I ordered and paid for lunch from a local deli online. After I picked up my order I decided to also get a soda, which was a separate transaction. I was just checking my online banking and noticed the deli charged me $20 instead of $2 for the soda. What do I do now? It has been 10 days and I didn't keep the receipt. I will call them tomorrow, but is there anyway for them to look this charge up? Will they even believe me? Of course this place is 25 minutes away from where I live too, so a pain to go there and try to work it out.

 

[happygirl]

About 10 days ago I ordered and paid for lunch from a local deli online. After I picked up my order I decided to also get a soda, which was a separate transaction. I was just checking my online banking and noticed the deli charged me $20 instead of $2 for the soda. What do I do now? It has been 10 days and I didn't keep the receipt. I will call them tomorrow, but is there anyway for them to look this charge up? Will they even believe me? Of course this place is 25 minutes away from where I live too, so a pain to go there and try to work it out.

I would just call the bank. I think that would be the easiest thing to do

 

[bumbershoot]

I'd take a printout of the charges on your account (blacking out all the things they don't need to see), go in, talk to the owner, see what they can do. Especially with the other charge showing, the one that was correct, they have a chance at figuring it out.

 

[plummer925]

I used to work for both a bank and a credit card company

In order for you to dispute the charge, you MUST first TRY to resolve it with the merchant. Give them a call and try over the phone (get the name of the person you speak to!). If they can't or won't help you, then you tried - then go to your bank.

Problem is you don't have your receipt to prove the transaction, so you may be out of luck...

 

[NYCDiane]

I hope this is a lesson learned: 1. ALWAYS check the charge amount before leaving a store and 2. ALWAYS keep your receipts to compare with your statement.

Even though it's 25 miles away, I would still go there (bank statement in hand) and show the manager/owner. I'm sure they will either refund it to your debit card or give you the $18.


Speaking of always checking..... I went to a certain bank the other day that gives free coin counting. Well, I already knew exactly how much I had because I counted out the amount (twice!!) from my coin jar. I get to the bank and the counter shorted me by $7. The teller told me to hit "GO" again because sometimes the coins don't go all the way through. I did and it credited me 55 cents. She ended up giving me the $7 credit because I knew exactly how much I had and explained this to her. I love this bank and have all my accounts there but I'm really annoyed about this coin counter. I always count my coins before bringing them (even when it's a few hundred $$) and I'm glad I do. I can't imagine how many people get shorted at these machines because they don't count their money first.

 

[tar heel]

I had a $24 charge to a pizza place to show up on my debit card as $64. I called the restaurant and got a moron of a manager, so I just filed it with Wells Fargo. I did NOT have my receipt, but the situation was a little different in that the card had been run correctly ($19.xx) and then we added the tip. It was at that point that the extra $40 was added. The bank gave me a temporary credit which was later changed to a permanent one.

 

[tar heel]

I would definitely try to handle this by telephone instead of driving 18 miles. If that doesn't work, I'd call the bank.

 

[kaytieeldr]

About 10 days ago I ordered and paid for lunch from a local deli online. After I picked up my order

I'm not asking for personal information at all, just asking the OP to think: first, how was the deli local enough to the OP's computer to make sense to place and pick up this order, but not local enough for a return trip to resolve an $18 mistake; and second, how much money does the OP's household net hourly that it's a pain to drive there to work out the problem?

 

[dhardawa]

The store should be keeping all the signed charge receipts. It should be very easy for them to pull the receipts for that day and see that you were overcharged and credit you.

 

[Dacky619]

I'm not asking for personal information at all, just asking the OP to think: first, how was the deli local enough to the OP's computer to make sense to place and pick up this order, but not local enough for a return trip to resolve an $18 mistake; and second, how much money does the OP's household net hourly that it's a pain to drive there to work out the problem?

Good catch, I also thought it was odd for a deli to accept credit for a $2 soda, but I guess it depends on the deli. I think the first thing I would do is call them and try to work it out from there.

 

[Disneychix]

I would call the deli and chances are they will either give you a credit right away or tell you to dispute it with your bank. I shouldn't matter if you don't have a reciept. The bank can get that if need be.

 

[Metsfan520]

I'm not asking for personal information at all, just asking the OP to think: first, how was the deli local enough to the OP's computer to make sense to place and pick up this order, but not local enough for a return trip to resolve an $18 mistake; and second, how much money does the OP's household net hourly that it's a pain to drive there to work out the problem?

Well, I work in NYC and live on LI, an hour train ride away. So I could have charged my lunch on Friday at a restaurant close to work and looked online on Saturday and discovered the mistake then.

 

[Shagley]

I'm not asking for personal information at all, just asking the OP to think: first, how was the deli local enough to the OP's computer to make sense to place and pick up this order, but not local enough for a return trip to resolve an $18 mistake; and second, how much money does the OP's household net hourly that it's a pain to drive there to work out the problem?

I agree with the OP. It would be a pain to have to drive 50 minutes round trip and use a couple gallons of gas to work out an $18 problem? I am assuming the OP was in the area of the deli for reasons other than to just pick up lunch (unless this is an awesome deli).

 

[NVDisMom]

We frequently get lunch at places that are no where near home AND we frequently do not look at our online banking until the next day or even a couple of days later.

That being said, I wouldn't drive down there. I would give them a call, have them pull the day's credit card receipts and find the mistake. If they can't or won't resolve the issue, then call your credit card company and file a dispute. Let them know you lost the receipt. The way visa/mastercard rules are written, the responsibility of proof falls on the merchant. All of this assumes the card was run as credit. If you signed the receipt for $20 you are out of luck, but otherwise the dispute will be found on your favor. If you did this as pin debit, then you are also out of luck if the deli doesn't work it out with you.

When you are on the phone with the owner/manager, if they are unwilling to help, let them know you plan to charge this transaction back. That means their processing bank will require them to pull the receipt and file extra paper work and risk losing the transaction amount plus a fairly large service fee. Also, if a business has too many chargebacks, their processor can refuse to allow them to accept credit and debit cards. Its a very consumer friendly system. HTH

 

[snoopy5386]

OP here, just got off the phone with the deli, the manager was able to find the mistake and refund my debit card!

To answer some of the other questions in this thread, the deli is in an area I only visit every couple of months and the whole reason I went there that day was because a friend's church was having a fundraiser there and we were going to order lunch and take it to a nearby awesome park to eat and play with our kids. I checked out their menu online, and saw that they had online ordering which I used to order and purchase my lunch. I paid and picked up the lunch no problem and while I was there waiting with my friend for her lunch to be ready I decided I wanted a soda, which should have rung up as $2, but instead rang up as $20.

As to why I used the debit card for a $2 purchase, the debit card is attached to a rewards checking account that requires 12 debit card (as a visa) purchases per month in order to receive the high interest rate. I try to use the card only for purchases under $5 and save bigger purchases for my rewards credit card. Hope that clears up all confusion.

 

[Tink-aholic]

Good catch, I also thought it was odd for a deli to accept credit for a $2 soda, but I guess it depends on the deli. I think the first thing I would do is call them and try to work it out from there.

I don't understand this post. If an establishment accepts credit, they accept credit. If they accepted his card for his previous transaction, why wouldn't they for the next one?

To the OP: I'm glad you had a good outcome.

 

[Dacky619]

I don't understand this post. If an establishment accepts credit, they accept credit. If they accepted his card for his previous transaction, why wouldn't they for the next one?

To the OP: I'm glad you had a good outcome.

Every store that accepts credit gets charged every time they use that system plus a small percentage of the sale total. Many small businesses have a minimum amount to accept a credit card. Off the top of my head my drycleaner and one of my local pizza shops requires a minimum purchase. I didn't realize this was not common knowledge.

glad it worked out for the OP though, I thought a call would fix everything.

 

[cseca]

Every store that accepts credit gets charged every time they use that system plus a small percentage of the sale total. Many small businesses have a minimum amount to accept a credit card. Off the top of my head my drycleaner and one of my local pizza shops requires a minimum purchase. I didn't realize this was not common knowledge.

glad it worked out for the OP though, I thought a call would fix everything.

I don't remember where I read this info, but I heard that small businesses can't legally limit the min charge if they accept credit card. I heard that it is part of their agreement with the card company and if someone told on them (to the card company) their agreement could be revoked.
But I could be totally wrong on this. I just remembered reading that somewhere.

 

[soccerchick]

Every store that accepts credit gets charged every time they use that system plus a small percentage of the sale total. Many small businesses have a minimum amount to accept a credit card. Off the top of my head my drycleaner and one of my local pizza shops requires a minimum purchase. I didn't realize this was not common knowledge.

glad it worked out for the OP though, I thought a call would fix everything.

Common knowledge, maybe, but minimum charge amounts are against the merchant-credit card agreement.

 

[Dacky619]

I don't remember where I read this info, but I heard that small businesses can't legally limit the min charge if they accept credit card. I heard that it is part of their agreement with the card company and if someone told on them (to the card company) their agreement could be revoked.
But I could be totally wrong on this. I just remembered reading that somewhere.

Common knowledge, maybe, but minimum charge amounts are against the merchant-credit card agreement.

Discover, Mastercard, and Visa all absolutely do (edit: maybe this should say "did," see below) prohibit a minimum amount in their agreements (I'm not familiar enough to make that statement with other credit cards), but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen still. This is why some small businesses will offer cash discounts to customers now to try to cut down on what they have to pay those credit card companies.

Edited to add: Cseca, I remembered hearing something similar, but apparently it was the opposite: http://creditcardforum.com/blog/credit-card-minimum-purchase

How it used to be…

For starters, there was never a credit card minimum purchase requirement. It was never illegal for a store to set a minimum. However, doing so was blatently against their merchant agreements with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover – all of which said a minimum purchase amount was not allowed.

If a business violated that rule, a customer could call up Visa/MC/Amex/Discover and report them. However in the several years leading up to the reform, they were very lax in enforcing this rule when a complaint was received.

How it is now…

An amendment of the Dodd-Frank reform went into effect in September 2010 that made it legal for businesses to set a credit card minimum purchase amount. Here’s the law so you can see for yourself:

(3) LIMITATION ON RESTRICTIONS ON SETTING TRANSACTION MINIMUMS OR MAXIMUMS. (A) IN GENERAL.—A payment card network shall not, directly or through any agent, processor, or licensed member of the network, by contract, requirement, condition, penalty, or otherwise, inhibit the ability (i) of any person to set a minimum dollar value for the acceptance by that person of credit cards, to the extent that (I) such minimum dollar value does not differentiate between issuers or between payment card networks; and (II) such minimum dollar value does not exceed $10.00

Here is another link explaning the changes from a news station: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/mo...ey/minimum-charge-on-credit-cards-coming-soon