This thread is inspired by another thread about getting back more change than you’re owed from a cashier. The difference here is that things are reversed. I’m interested on how others would have handled this situation:
I once went to a minor league baseball game out of state. I stopped at a vendor booth and saw a baseball cap that I liked. The price of the hat was $18.00 Since I wanted to save my cash, I bought the hat with a credit card. The purchase receipt was one of those old mimeograph receipts where they pull a handle across the card and it imprints on the receipt. Anyway, I went happily on my way.
(1 week later)I return home from my trip. I pull the receipt from my wallet and figure, “what do I need a receipt for a baseball cap for?” It was a small purchase.
(2 weeks later)I get my credit card bill, which shows a purchase from the game for $286.00!
After many conversations and letters to the credit card company and the ball park, it is decided by the credit co. that since I don’t have the receipt, they have to charge me the amount.
I paid it.
While I learned a valuable lesson about saving recipts for any purchases, I’m curious what others would have done in this situation. Would you have paid the bill for an incorrect amount? Or risk credit problems by refusing to pay?
Don’t know about the law where you are, but in Britain, most major credit cards have signed to a code of conduct (the two that haven’t are rapacious US banks trying to duck their responsibilities).
You may query any charge on your bill and the retailer would have to justify it by producing their original receipt copy. This should show if $18 was changed to $286. If you questioned it further, you could ask the retailer to provide evidence of the items in the purchase. If the retailer could not do this then they could be pursued through the courts to show cause for debiting your credit card against your wishes. Credit card companies will often give you the benefit of the doubt because they would be party to the action and might lose more money than just offering a refund. In the short term, if you go to court, you would still be down $268, but so long as you made it clear that the money they had taken was against your will and that it was paid under duress, you would still be able to claim it through the small claims court without affecting your credit rating in any way.
My credit card statements say you don’t have to pay any amount that’s in dispute. Have to write to them within 60 days of getting the statement with the inaccurate item, provide account #, dollar amount in error, and explain why you think it’s an error. Doesn’t say anything about providing your copy of the receipt. While investigating, they can’t report you as delinquent (as long as you pay the rest of your bill), or take any action to collect. Maybe credit companies have changed their policies (probably forced to by law) since you got taken. Still, don’t think I would’ve caved so fast.
I work for a credit card company-if you had called us about this,we would have put the charge into a dispute. Then we,the bank,force the merchant to prove the charge was valid. Since the signed receipt would not say the $268 amount, it would be credited to you.
However, you only have sixty days after the charge occurs to dispute it. If that’s the case,call the bank and ask them to start a fraud case. This will mean changing your account number.
If we can prove the merchant did this delibrately,their Visa/Mastercard privledges can be revoked.
Thanks for the input on this. I did, in fact, notify the credit card co. by phone and by letter within 60 days to dispute the amount. After investigating, the final response from the credit co. was that I was liable without proof of the receipt, and that an itemized description of the purchase was outside of their investigation. Seemed rather odd to me, since credit fraud is serious stuff. I was informed that the merchant’s credit privledges could be revoked if the credit co. received additional complaints. Good for the credit co., but not for the situation. I chalked it up to experience.
same sort of thing happened to me - on a trip to Chicago, my room was charged, and the receipt and the bill differed quite a bit. I challenged it, told them I had a copy of my receipt, and they all agreed to change it. I never had to send in a copy.
Would seem to me that a purchase that large at a ballpark concession stand should have screamed fraud to the company.