Overcharged credit card help.

Have you called your credit card company to contest the charge?

I have not! Perhaps I will stop at the bank (it's a card associated with my checking acct) tomorrow.

I once had a vendor billing error that over drafted my debit account, and both the bank and the vendor offered to take care of the fees. But the mistake was a pretty big one (there was a couple thousand of duplicate bills) so they may have been making an exception.

The restaurant knows it was their error. They say it was reversed later on the same night I was there.

Let them know that they caused you fees, they might offer to pay for them. And contact your bank as well, they may waive them since it wasn't your fault (but they also may require that you try taking it up with the restaurant first).

If and when they cause fees. I should see the billing-error-retraction in the pending queue of my account, yes? I've already let them know that I will incur overdraft fees if they don't fix it. If it happens they will surely be getting another phone call. I've even printed my current account snap-shot.

By the way, thanks for the responses!

I'm not sure I understand your description of the problem. Was the problem that the restaurant charged you too much -- that they charged you the whole tab when they should have only charged you your own share of the tab?

In any event, I agree with boomerang. Call the credit card company -- you can do that 24/7, so why wait? -- and contest the charge. That way you don't run into surcharges in the first place. You can always go back to the restaurant and give them the $30 that are rightfully theirs.

(And forget my last post. My reading comprehension took a vacation there for a moment.)

Any time there is a problem with a charge the first person you should contact is the company that issues the card. Usually you will get an immediate hold on the charge that will prevent you from getting overdrafts until the vendor proves that the charge is legitmate.

Really, really good on you for catching the problem so quickly.

I guess contesting both charges is fine as neither is correct.

At the danger of annoying you, littlek, I'd like to emphasize the word "immediate" in boomerang's response. Call them now, and the charge will be blocked before your bank opens tomorrow. You don't need the stress of sorting out the damage after your account is overcharged.

Report it to your credit card company right away, LittleK. That will at least put the required payments on the contested portion in abeyance. And I don't believe any other late fees, overdraft charges can accrue on a contested charge.

There is a complaint form on the reverse of most credit card bills that you fill out and fax to your CC company.

But it is up to you to do all the legwork, negotiating etc with the "offending party". The credit card company assumes that the charge is legitimate and will not intervene between the two parties.

I was actually scammed, defrauded, on the internet by a "company" that pretended they were a major internet security firm and that the special offer was coming from Google in order to sell their "security program".

They were a boiler room call center and neither Google nor the big name net security firm cared that their names were being used to scam people.

The long and the short of this little story; the credit card company still would do nothing. I had to do everything to get the credit back. Numerous calls to the boiler room operation, long talks with the "supervisor" only got me continued promises of a credit.

What finally worked was when I told the company that I needed their physical address because the Better Business Bureau wanted to investigate. That got the money back right quick.

Ooh, oh, oh..... that annoying big brother coming out again...... ok, ok..... here I go......

Well done! <hugs little sister>

I agree with the others, call them immediately!
In future, don't use your debit card to pay in restaurants or other public
establishments where you cannot control what's put on your tab. Once
your account is charged, you'll have the funds outstanding until you prove
the charges are unfounded.

Well, that was more or less useless.

Because it is a debit card that I use as a credit card (with a major bank) I was in a sort of grey area. The credit card people wanted to put me through to the bank account people. But, the banking phone maze didn't have an option for disputing a charge. So. The guy at credit (the second time I called) said that I need to wait for 5-7 business days for the establishment to clear the record. I told him I have just around 2 dollars in my account now and he told me that The bank would somehow know that I had a dispute. How, I wonder.

littlek, I had a dispute with my debit card once - got charged twice for the same
amount. I did the dispute online with my bank, and then got a claim # and was referred to a phone number I could call.

I know it's a maze at large banks but you'll get eventually to the right department, just try again.

They'll know because there is now a record of your call even if you didn't get to the right place.

It's stupid that a charge can go through so quickly but a credit takes so long.

Keep after them. Call again during regular business hours.

The restaurant you were in wants it cleared up too -- they can't have discrepancies in their records. It'll get cleared up. You caught the error right away.