What the Heck? Wednesday: Cash Only
posted on Mar. 10, 2010
Ok, so I fully had the intention of going a completely hilarious route with What the Heck? Wednesday this week. In fact, some of the things that went down in the past few days were real doozies! For now I’m going to have to ask everyone to please stay tuned for those stories to pop up at a later date. Because this morning’s What the Heck? moment totally has me freaking out.
I logged into my Bank of America account this morning with the intent of paying the mortgage. The balance looked a little lower than I expected, so before I hit the “pay now” button, I went in and looked at my transactions. Most of them were normal and expected, that is until I got to the charge for $765.65 from Pizazz Tuscan Grill at the Pier 5 Hotel in Baltimore. Ok, ok, so I know what you’re thinking, and yes, you’re right. I can be kind of a lush sometimes and have been known to rack up a pretty hefty bar bill. I assure you that at this dinner, however, I only had two glasses of Pinot Grigio and a 9-inch pizza. Ok, you caught me. I had three glasses of Pinot, but that’s beside the point.
There were about 25 of us dining at Pizazz that night from the Bloggy Boot Camp crowd, and I think we all kind of knew that something was fishy when three of us, who happened to be sitting right next to each other, had our credit cards declined when trying to pay for our meals. Little Miss Shady Waitress tried to run my Mastercard first, and now that I know the amount that she was attempting to run, I’m not at all surprised that it didn’t go through because I have seriously beaten that credit card to death over the past couple years.
Since the Mastercard was declined, I made the mistake of giving her my Debit Card. That went through no problem and I signed the slip for $60 and headed upstairs to bed. If I’m adding things up correctly, I wound up spending about $820 on three wines and a pizza, and all I got was a lousy fraudulent charge. I mean, if I am going to spend that kind of dough, I at least expect someone to give me a police escort up to my room and tuck me in. What the heck?
I talked to Bank of America, and because the charge was still pending, they were able to remove it. Let’s hope that the Pizazz folks don’t try and run it again. And let’s hope that I can get to the bottom of this when I call the hotel today and hopefully save some other poor chick the agony of seeing her funds unnecessarily sucked out of her checking account.
From now on, I’m carrying cash.
What the heck?
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That sucks. Big time. I would definitely call the restaurant and make sure they know. From working in restaurants for years, I’m sad to say this sort of thing is way more common than you might think, but that restaurants are usually more than eager to clear it up. Good luck!
When I went to order my cosmo at Pizzaz (I went directly to the bar and ordered), that same waitress was upset that I wouldn’t give her my CC so she could run a tab for me. I handed her cash and told her I’d just pay as I go. Thank goodness I did! Wow!
When I checked into the hotel the front desk gave me grief that I wanted to use my Visa checking card instead of a “regular” credit card. I know it is standard practice to put a hold on an account for a set amount when you go to a hotel, and I told them I had no problem with them doing so, but they seemed really bothered and snooty about it. Yes, I have a regular credit card, but I didn’t want to use it. I guess “pay-as-you-go” people are harder to rip off.
Sorry to hear about this! What a rotten way to end an otherwise fantastic conference!!
Yep I carry cash too…same exact reason!
Oh, that really sucks! I would be super pissed and raising some hell right now.
Oh no!! At least the bank is working with you. And I thought it was bad when a “free sample” scheme charged me $149.95 last week.
I’m happy i didn’t eat there, that’s terrible…what a rip off!
That is so scary!
Oh my gosh! That’s terrible! I think the way they handled our large group was poor at best to begin with. I cannot believe they tried to charge you for the entire bill! I wonder if anyone else who used cards had similar experiences.
I used cash that night and am now very glad I did, but I usually use my debit card. I really hope you get it all cleared up!!
Whoa – I’m so glad the bank was able to cancel the transaction, and that you were vigilant in checking your charges!
So this totally happened to me one time when we paid with a credit card but left a cash tip (b/c it was a large group). The waiter decided to fill in his own $100 tip. Nice. So I had to call them and convince them that I did NOT leave that tip… thank goodness they are so responsive and remove it quickly, huh?
I think that’s more of a WTF Wednesday than anything else…
Yikes!
Glad you noticed and got it taken care of.
Good grief!
Oh, that’s awful! Can you report them to the better business bureau or something?
SO SORRY!
People can be so…UGH
OMG that is horrible!!! What was going on there? That is so awful, I hope you get it resolved. I will be waiting to hear what happened. I would totally freak out!
Ugh, that is just horrible! I hope the restaurant is cooperative in helping you handle all of this! Keep us posted and good luck!
Oh my goodness!! I hope you can get everything figured out!! Things like this are THE WORST! Good Luck!
Okay, I think that actually qualifies as a ‘What the F?’
Do these people not know who they’re dealing with? We’re BLOGGERS…that means we BLOG about our lives and give all kinds of free press—good, bad, and otherwise. If they DON’T make it right and IMMEDIATELY, I will make it my personal mission to tell your story over and over agin on my blog, facebook and twitter. It may seem feeble, but it’s all I got…Sorry this happened. Can the bank puit a fraud charge notice on your account so the restaurant can’t try to run it again?
OMG! That’s is a justtified, What THE Heck! I think I would freaki! It’s really hard to be polite, and get down to what’s going on, when you’ve been robbed!
That’s insane. Something somewhat similar happened once when we left cash for a tip (after paying by cc) and the waiter then added a nice hefty tip on the cc for himself. Good thing I still had the receipt!
I hope the manager takes you seriously and does something…not sure what, but SOMETHING.
OH MY! Good thing you caught that!!!!!
That is horrible! Glad that Bank of America was able to help you out and hopefully the hotel will apologize for their mistake.
Found your blog from Stepping on Cheerios….
Yikes. That’s awful. I hate when stuff like that happens. Hopefully it’s all resolved quickly and easily.
This has happened to me before too. What a load of BS! I hope someone gets fired over this.
I am glad that your bank is working with you, that totally sucks! I’m also glad I happened to be carrying cash that night!
OMG mar!… i cant even imagine… and i cant wait to hear what happens when you call the hotel/restaurant… (i.e. i’ll expect a message about it…)
I couldn’t believe your tweet when I read it earlier. I hope that the place apologizes.
Did you see they did it to MamaKat, too? Crazy. And the amount they tried to put through on my card wasn’t even the same as what they put through on your card.
OMG. That SUCKS! What is up with that waitress? I can’t believe she would do that. I’ll be sure to pay close attention to my bill the next time I’m in a similar situation. Hope it’s worked out.
I hope they fire her butt and now!!!!!!!! That’s AWFUL!!!!!
Okay, we lived in Baltimore for several years, up until this past July. We lived close to that restaurant on the harbor and I can vouch–such a shady establishment. First, there have been at least three restaurants in that location that have all failed in the past few years. We had a terrible experience at pizzazz. Terrible service, got our orders wrong and were so rude to our one year-old. I am so sorry you had to go through that. Yuck.
OMG That sucks! I hate when you go out and have a god time then somting like that happens to just ruin the night. Maybe you should just cancel that card and get a new one.
Sorry I hven’t stopped by in a while. I been working and house hunting and neglecting my blog friends. How was Bloggy Boot Camp?
That is crazy. I only had my debit card on me when we were at the table and saw everyone paying with cash, so I ran up to my room to get cash out of my purse since the ATM was broken. I just missed out on that horrible mess. Whew! I hope you got everything fixed with the restaurant. I did love the hotel, but wasn’t too fond of the service at the hotel restaurant.
OMG, that’s brutal! I just assume that people are honest when I’m passing around my visa card. I hope this doesn’t drag on for months while you are trying to sort it out. That’s a lot of money to have tied up! good luck with that.
I would be fuming. I’m glad you were able to get it taken off and hopefully they don’t try and run it again! I think your waitress may have been the one to have too many Pinot Grigio’s that night, BTW.
That’s terrible! I never carry cash – only credit cards. I probably should be more careful.
Wow! I kinda figured this out through all the tweeting yesterday. I’m talking to a business here about protecting our identity. She had some scary things to report just locally.
That’s horrible! Yes, I think cash is the way:)
Hey woman…have an award for you over at “my place”… =)
I aint buying it. I know you ordered your New England self the finest bottle of wine, steak, lobster….
Fess up! lol
How many other people at your party had the same thing happen? I’d call the police. You could have been seriously screwed if your mortgage payment was automatic. You’d have transactions bouncing all over the place. Argh!
Something very similar happened to my sister last weekend. Make sure you call the restaurant, too and let them know. THat’ snot cool.
Holy crap honey! Did it get straightened out?
I would have crapped. Seriously.
Either that or Leo would have killed me.
xo