12-02-2009, 01:54 AM
wurm wrote:
The only other thing I can think of is the one time a couple of months ago when I took somebody to lunch and I actually handed the card to the waiter in the restaurant. That's the only time I can remember it being out of my possession. I wonder if the waitperson worked a little funny stuff.
That is quite plausible. About 7 yrs ago, months after a trip to Las Vegas, I suddenly noticed 2 charges to a sub sandwich shop in Las Vegas on my Discover card. The dates for the charges were dates when I was home in NM. In fact, on the dates of the sandwich charges, there were other legitimate charges that clearly showed I was in NM. I called Discover and they said "but there are signatures on the receipts for the sandwiches." They agreed to send me a copy of the signature and it was clearly not mine. When I told Discover that, they immediately canceled that card and issued me a new one.
Like you, I NEVER had the card out of my possession; however, while in Las Vegas, I did use my card at a number of restaurants. I have no doubt that's what happened with mine.
Also, while not completely the same issue, but fraudulent nonetheless, on New Year's Eve this past year, we dined at the restaurant in our hotel and charged the bill to our room. The next day at check out, our bill was substantially higher. Before agreeing to the charges, I reviewed them with the hotel front desk staff. We found that the waiter had apparently NOT been happy with his tip and he had changed our bill to make a higher tip for himself (and forged my signature). We were able to get the excess amounts taken off, but I was still furious.
There appear to be lots of ways to cheat people...