£5000 restaurant bill !!!

pejoli

Really looking for some advice - hope this is the right forum.

I went to Indonesia for a holiday, and on my return found my credit card had been charged £5000 for a restaurant meal, not £50 or so I was expecting (and that was for a group of seven, this wasn't exactly fine dining). Now given there's about 20k rupiah to the pound I can see this might have happened and we didn't notice when we came to enter our credit card pin, though still hunting for the receipt to see if that's the case.

I phoned up the credit card company (Halifax) to explain the situation and they put me through to the disputes team. They requested I notified them in writing/email, but then the person added something to the effect - "of course if you signed for it, then there's not much we can do, it's your problem" which of course has got me very worried indeed!

So I'll try and we if I can contact the restaurant, which might be very hard, but where do I stand on this if I don't get anywhere? Would I be covered by any consumer credit act? Even if we found we had actually signed/pin'ed for it?

Really appreciate any input, as you can imagine, a bit of a stressful situation.

jonesMUFCforever

In a word - yes.

cazmanian_minx

Did the restaurant give you separate itemised receipts and credit card receipts? If you've got a separate receipt with everything on the bill listed and it comes to a different total to your credit card receipt, I would think that Halifax would be able to use this to dispute the charge successfully with the restaurant.

grumbler

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

In a word - yes.

Yes - to what question(s)?

I don't think that the Consumer Credit Act can help in any way.
The amount was authorised. I don't think that the restaurant is obliged to keep the detailed menu that the customer paid for.

bris

It's not going to be easy, if we could all buy something then say we didn't spend that much everybody would be buying Rolexes than claiming it was a timex.


The best chance you have is the restaurant admitting the mistake. If they insist the bill is right and its processed correctly there is little the bank can do about it.

Monkeychops16

As Cazmainan_Minx said if the receipt shows a different figure then you could try an "altered amount" claim. If it turns out that it is pin verified then there are no chargeback rights as you have accepted the amount by entering your pin.However Halifax may be able to do good faith collection. This is basically going to the merchant's bank explaining the situation and asking for the difference back in "good faith". It is worth a try. Hope you get it sorted.

Johnnytwostep

you have been done up like a kipper

foxtrotoscar_2

Johnnytwostep wrote: »

you have been done up like a kipper

...a kipper would be a lot cheaper..:p

jonesMUFCforever

grumbler wrote: »

Yes - to what question(s)?

I don't think that the Consumer Credit Act can help in any way.
The amount was authorised. I don't think that the restaurant is obliged to keep the detailed menu that the customer paid for.

That is what I meant plus if it was signed or chip and pin authorised it will be difficult to argue the toss.

koloko

I have occasionally gone out for meals costing £3,000-£4,000, the majority of the bill is usually taken up with fine wines. I hope they didn't unwittingly sneak a decade old cotes d'rhone on you

pinpin

Ouch. I hope you get your money back, but it doesn't sound great.
Same thing happened to a friend of mine in Turkey and I don't think he had any luck. Hopefully you will.

PS - When I was recently in Vegas, a young guy spent $150,000 on a bottle of champagne, and threw most of it over the girls he was entertaining!