In case you didn't know, merchants can change a charge after the fact while it's "pending" and this is generally how credit card tips get added onto the bill. What this means in practice is that restaurants and staff can fraudulently steal more tips than what you signed off on, and they're counting on the fact that 99.99% of people don't review their charges or save receipts.
As far as I know, there's not a single bank that has a notification system for when pending charges get changed.
I just caught a second restaurant doing this to me in 3 years. Luckily, I religiously save all my receipts so I will have no problem disputing the fraud.
Watch out for tip fraud everyone. Always save your receipts.
byu/mewalkyne inCreditCards
Posted by mewalkyne
2 Comments
damn i had this happen last year too, some place downtown added extra $5 to the tip. only caught it because i check my statements pretty obsessively when degoogling made me more paranoid about tracking in general
the whole pending charge system is such bs tbh. like why can they just modify amounts after you already signed? seems like there should be some kind of alert when the final amount differs from what you authorized but banks probably don’t want the hassle
good catch on saving receipts though, most people just toss them immediately
I always take a picture of my receipts after I sign them when dining out just because of this.