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So, when should common sense kick in?

I stand by my first post and say that you should at least call this, and I will say it again, regular customer and say WTF? This is totally unacceptable and I do not appreciate you taking advantage of my employee or my business. I know this is a hassle but I would give he/she one chance to pay the amount due or then at the least report them back to the processer as to the truth behind the transaction. Yes you made a mistake but this person is STEALING from you. Then I would call the police and file a police report as too the theft of the money. Maybe after showing them the police report you give them one more chance to pay up. Yes some will say overkill just let it go…but business is business and if you owed a supplier $150 they would come after you. I am not saying call the lawyers out but I am saying spend an hour on this and put a little fear into the low-lifes that think this is acceptable behavior. Good luck either way. :twisted:
 
For that kind of money, I would really consider calling that customer like Mike suggested. I would even call my local police department and file a report about the issue. If customer is a complete butt, and continues to play the game, then possibly explore a credit card fraud complaint. My understanding is that my compliance or non-compliance with a contract with my service provider would be non-issue with someone fraudulantly doing what they did.

Might be worth a quick ring to the customer in case this is a huge misunderstanding . . . . “never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance” . . . . until they prove they were not ignorant.
 
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qcfmike:
I know this is a hassle but I would give he/she one chance to pay the amount due or then at the least report them back to the processer as to the truth behind the transaction.
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I understand the emotions here, but really there is nothing to be done. Report what to the processor? That you let them write a $75 tip in the line, and gave the $50 change - and that you want them to make them pay? It’s laughable. The processor will do nothing and should do nothing.
qcfmike:
Yes you made a mistake but this person is STEALING from you. Then I would call the police and file a police report as too the theft of the money. Maybe after showing them the police report you give them one more chance to pay up.
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Call the police and again, tell them what? The person did not steal from you. Exactly what law was broken here against the pizza place? None. If the card was used fraudulently (i.e. someone else’s card), it’s between the owner of the card and the person that stole it. The police will not touch this with a 10 foot pole.
 
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We first need to know what is being disputed. If they have purchased 3 other times and have they used this card before? Report to your processer the whole situation because this is fraud on their behalf. Now…as far as the tip… The restaurant did not give this customer anything back. The employee gave this person $50 back. The employee is stuck paying taxes on this $75 mistake in the end here. The whole situation is wrong and bad but it is steal a theft and fraud and should be handled. The police will write a report as to what happened and to make a point go down and pay the $25 to file a civil case against this person for the amount you are due and all expenses. See what it is worth to them. The shop has the record of the phone call to the person making the charge that said everything was ok. When did they dispute this…that same night? After they got the bill? Again… I would like to know if the person disputing all this is also the one that bought the pizza’s? Anyway there are a few options to handle this…one being our “guests” way…just let it go. :shock:
 
Also…if this is a stolen card…you know who used it. They ordered 4 times from you. Contact the police…the credit card company involved…the owner of the card… go after the person using this card illegally. If the user is the owner…once again I stand on this one…go after the person! :twisted:
 
qfcmike - Have you ever called the police in regard to any credit card fraud? I’m curious. Your ideas on how this works are very “pie in the sky”.

I’m not a lawyer. But I do have a lot of experience dealing with credit card charge backs. I can tell you, the merchant is not the victim in a credit card fraud case. Therefore the merchant has nothing to “file”. I have people on video using their own card picking up food - and then doing a chargeback. No one cares. I have addresses of people using stolen cards that were chargedback - no one cares. No one cares because the only people out money is the merchant.

Did the OP’s driver take an imprint of the card? Was that signed? Does the signature match the back of the card? Did the driver check ID? Did the driver even see the card? I bet the answer to most of those are no.

The restaurant did not have to process the $75 tip after the driver came back from the delivery. In fact, they should not have. By doing so they broke their merchant agreement and (probably) any protections they have under that agreement.

So what, the shop has a record of a phone call to someone that said “oh, it’s okay!”. “Officer, they told me it was okay - please make them pay!”? I doubt it.

Yes, there are many ways to handle this. I’m saying “let it go” because the shop doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Again - the tip should have never been entered. If the tip wasn’t entered, the problem would have stayed with the driver.

That said, I’d still call the customer, bluff them a little and see where it goes. Don’t threaten them that you are going to the police if they don’t pay, that’s extortion. If nothing comes of that, then it is my opinion that you are SOL.
 
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qcfmike:
Also…if this is a stolen card…you know who used it. They ordered 4 times from you. Contact the police…the credit card company involved…the owner of the card… go after the person using this card illegally. If the user is the owner…once again I stand on this one…go after the person! :twisted:
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I doubt very much that the driver could identify the person who used it, or even the person that signed the slip - which may be two different people, it’s been what - 2 months now.

I can tell you from experience - the person that gave the CC number over the phone is the one committing the fraud. Not the person that signs the slip - unless they happen to be the same person.
 
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Again you presume a lot of the details that we do not know. This is pointless because you handle things how you want to and others do their way. The point is to give advice and options. The merchant is also a victim here and the police will help in these situations. It is not extortion to tell the person that STOLE from you that if they do not pay you that you will call the police and report the incident. I hope the shop owner involved here does follow up with the person(s) involved here and that they recover their money. Is it a guarantee…no. Likely… who knows? But doing nothing is 100% money lost and if that’s what you are willing to take…so be it. They also need to have a good updating of store policies in these types of situations so they do not occur again. Yes every merchant will be taken advantage of by some scumbag that is out there to get a free this or that or even worse in some cases.,.,.but people need to stand up for themselves and their livelyhoods…stop letting the trash of the world get the free ride and get away with it. :idea:
 
I make no claim as to who perpetrated it . . . but there seems a clear theft by deception (maybe conversion?) and fraudulant use of a credit account. Someone somewhere on the receiving end of the $50 and the pizza. Whoever made the decision to sign that receipt made the first step of the chain of events that may be actionable.

I suggest simply to approach the customer with an attitude of finding the truth(s) and seeking resolution without inciting unneccesary conflict. Then, if still unsatisfied, contact the local police department about potential complaint. BELIEVE THIS: If it happend once, then you can bet that same $150+ that if this was intentional, then it has been or will be done again. Success breeds contempt and arrogance. A proper trail of incidents will be useful to someone somewhere if it becomes a pattern. Just sayin’ that documentation is the gold standard.
 
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qcfmike:
.but people need to stand up for themselves and their livelyhoods…stop letting the trash of the world get the free ride and get away with it. :idea:
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You and I agree 100% on that.

You and I obviously differ on this.

Wasn’t the time to “stand up for themselves” back when the driver turned in a ticket with a $75 tip on it and gave a story about giving $50 cash back? Doesn’t the merchant in this case assume at least 50% of the blame? The OP knew it wasn’t right, but he let it run anyway just in case it worked. To now cry foul only because there was a chargeback doesn’t make sense.

Again, I don’t fault the OP for having this happen - I learned the lesson also. I hope he somehow gets some money back, but I’d bet $75 myself that he wont see a dime unless for some reason, someone at that address (if they still live there) decides to make it right. The CC company nor the police will care one bit about it.

I’m curious what happened with the driver today - hopefully we will get an update from the OP tonight.
 
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We actually have two issues here. The first is the tip for cash transaction that the driver did and then the processing of the charge that the owner put through. Shame on both for breaking their own rules. That said, it’s the second issue that is a more important one. The theft that occured. This was a substantial amount and in my opinion should be looked into within reason. I think we all need a lot more details as to what transpired so that we can look at the real big picture and all of us stop making our own guesstimates. Either way like I said I do hope you recover your loss and everyone learns from this experience. Hmm…anyone ever thought with how the economy is going and the value of the dollar to just going back to accepting gold & silver nuggets? :mrgreen:
 
I know some of you have been cringing, wondering when I might have something to say in this thread… Well, here goes…
qcfmike:
Hmm…anyone ever thought with how the economy is going and the value of the dollar to just going back to accepting gold & silver nuggets? :mrgreen:
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The more things change, the more they stay the same…

If we went back to gold and silver nuggets, then this thread would be avout how a driver accepted a big gold nugget for an order and in return gave back several silver pebbles so they could pocket a big tip. Later the merchant finds that the nugget was actually “fools gold” and wants to know what his options are. Several replies would follow about if the drivers was properly trained to recognize fools gold and did they actually bring and use their portable assayers kit to weigh and analyze the nugget instead of just accepting the customers word on the nuggets value. Other posts would be about contacting the local sheriff for relief and whether or not it is the drivers or the owners responsibility to actually perform a test on the gold. A few posts would be about the reliability of portable assay kits and if the manufacturer of the kit is responsible for false test results. Gregster will hijack the thread and say the driver was unjustly blamed for the error and is not legally responsible for the loss. He will further find a way to blame the whole thing on low wages and accuse everyone of doing the same thing… various posts of pictures of horses being beaten will follow. The sheriff arrests gregster and escorts him to the city limits and issues a stern warning. Gregster is seen walking back into town later that evening.

The more things change, the more they stay the same…😛 :lol:

For the record the above was a joke, part of which was about myself. I know some of you at least laughed if not at least chuckled. I hope you all liked it. I meant nothing mean at all by it.
 
Good one gregster!! 🙂

One of the only 2 disputes I have had on a credit card came from a customer that had ordered multiple times. I called the customer and got things worked out right away. It was a processor error that caused the dispute rather than the customer.

I guess what I am saying is call the customer and inquire about the charge back. Don’t accuse the customer of anything just ask if they are aware of the charge back. This will give you a starting point for what ever action may be required.
 
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Well, here’s the deal… the chargeback notification stated the card was stolen. It’s actually owned by an individual in Toronto, Canada. The bank sent me a copy of the dispute form that “real” cardholder filled out. There were two transactions… one from a fragrance store about 10 miles away and mine.

Yes, this customer did order from us 3 times prior, so there was a certain level of trust, albeit small. I probably was too trusting after the conversation I had with the customer that night.

As for tonight, I sat down with my driver. I brought up the incident from that night and she immediately knew that I had some bad news. I told her that the card that that lady used was stolen and that I had to return the money to the CC company and pay a fee. I told my driver that she was going to need to pay back the $25 fake tip. She agreed without hesitation. We also both agreed to split the $50 ($25 apiece) for the cashback con. So basically I got back $50. My driver took it pretty well. I know we both learned a lot from this and hopefully are better prepared to prevent this in the future.

Where to go from here? I am going to inform the sheriffs department and the local DA about this. The funny thing is, I know where these people live (at least they did. I suppose they could have moved). I have her cell phone. And, I also saw that one of her previous orders were done online, so I have her e-mail and another CC # from that order (yes, it was different). I’m not sure what can and will be done. It may be just too much of a hassle to try to recover anything from this. But, I would like to see this woman get busted for identity theft.
 
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RG is correct in the sense that as far as the law is concerned, the merchant is not a victim and therefore cannot file a complaint. The victims are the cards owner, who the merchant does not get contact info for and the issuing bank who has a vested interest in promoting fraudulent transactions. Despite the fact that the only one who ends up out a penny is the merchant, they are not legally considered a victim. At least this is how it has been told to me by my local police. If anyone here has had a different resolution, I would be very interested to here the details of the charges and punishment.
 
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I’ve had slightly different advice. Initially the actual cardholder is the victim.

However, once the chargeback has been effected then the merchant is also a victim as they have suffered financial loss through, in this case, use of a stolen card. It is at this point that you can do something.

Whether the police etc will do anything over $50-75 is however very unlikely in my opinion.
 
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Pizzafanatic - Was this order also done online?

Was the actual card stolen or just the number? Did the driver actually see the card or was a number just given over the phone?

I’m not to sure you can cry “use of a stolen card” to the police if you didn’t follow any procedure to at least try to identify the card holder.

Again, I’m not busting your chops - I don’t have my drivers check anyone’s cards, it’s not worth the time and hassle in comparison to the small number of chargebacks it might help stop. I’m just curious.

You came out pretty good in this, at least getting back $50.
 
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Correct…Once you sustain an actaual lost you are a victim and may take actions towards the people that used the card but not the bank or the card holder…unless they are one in the same. The reason that so many of these situations are not followed up on is that there is no additional information to use. You have an address, an email, a phone number, and damn…another credit card. Not to mention the drive would probably be able to give some sort of description about the person who signed for the whole thing. I called a friend of mine who has been on a Northern Illinois police dept for 28 years this morning and though currently is not…was a crimes detective for 14 years there… and got his take on the whole thing. He said that most of these cases are very hard to persue but the more information you have the better. He mentioned the other card used for a previous purchase…even though not disputed… maybe worth checking into to see if it was another stolen card? More for the police to go on. He did say that, and obviously, the higher the dollar the more effort would be put into something. Not wanting to say they minimalize any case but common sense does prevail. Being a higher income demographic and having a large retail shopping mall they run into a lot of clothes theft that run into the thousands of dollars on stolen credit card numbers and he said you would be amazed how many of those merchants still take phone orders and have a “friend” pick up the product. Oh…and YES the merchant is a victim of theft and they do investigate it as such totally separate from the credit card companies investigation into the card number theft. Like most of you have gone through…the cc company does not care about the merchant because they are not out anything and their customer is not being charged. The last thing is that in most food cases the reports are never made because they are usually small dollar amounts and NORMAL size tips not the extra scam tip that happened here. So in most cases the restauant is really out a lot less than the actual charge and it is not worth the time to go after. So I think in the end a lot of this depends on what line you are willing to draw as an acceptable loss and how good of a relationship you have with local law inforcement. Maybe time for Blue Tuesday specials? 😃 And Gregster I was surprised you didn’t jump in earlier… :shock:
 
qcfmike:
He mentioned the other card used for a previous purchase…even though not disputed… maybe worth checking into to see if it was another stolen card? More for the police to go on.
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How would/could pizzafanatic go about doing this? Check with who? And ask what?
 
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