My husband and I went to this Stop And Go Texaco as usual and had a purchase total $83.90. The cashier ran our card as debit once and it was declined. (I knew this was not possible because we had well over $1500.00 in our checking account.) The cashier asked us to run it again as debit using our pin # again, and a second time it was declined. The owner came out and said that they were having problems with their debit machine and asked us to run it as credit, so we did. My husband signed the receipt and we left thinking everthing was ok.
The very next morning I had discovered on our bank account on-line that the purchase of $83.90 had been taken out, not once, not even twice, but 3 times. I immediately printed our bank account register off and we went back to the gas station with this information. The owner said that he did not take our money because he Reversed the 2 debit Declines. Ok, so he reversed 2 declines which told me that he DID take it out because why would you reverse a decline? He was kind enough to give us a copy of his credit/debit card batch out for that day, but unfortunately, his print off was no proof that he gave us our money back. If anything, it was more proof that he definately took it out 3 times, twice as debits, and once as credit.
He asked us to wait atleast 3 days for our money of $167.80 to show back up on our bank account. I called the bank to find out if we had received our credit back from the gas station, (knowing that I did NOT see it for myself online), and was informed that they had NOT given it back to us. The kind lady at our bank informed me that she would take care of any bank charges or overdrafts that this incident might acquire since it was obvious that they had taken it out 3 times instead of once. She suggested that I go back to the gas station and show him my bank records and try to convince him to give us our money back, and if that did not work, then to call the banks 800 number to report fraud. (Now a full week had passed).
My husband went back to the gas station today one last time today, (now that it has been 2 weeks since the incident), and tried one last time to explain to the owner that he had taken our purchase out 3 times and needed to refund it twice. The owner insisted that he did not take our money and that it was the debit card's company's fault, not his. That the debit card company had our money or that it was our bank accounts fault and not his.
So I called the bank and they game me a case #, informed me that it was obvious that we were entitled to a refund from this gas station, asked us to come in to a local bank branch to sign a "Cardholder Statement of Dispute" and that our money would be refunded back within 24 to 48 hours.
So if we are getting our money back in 2-4 days then why report this? Well, we thought it would be in the consumers best interest to know that we believe this company is Ripping Off their consumers. Either they are knowingly ripping off their customers because it is quite obvious that they charged us three times, or they lack book keeping skills because if they were to balance their register with the credit card machine everyday, then they would have seen that they had overcharged us by $167.80 that evening. I don't know what the correct answer is to that, but let me leave you on this note.
We purchased $83.90 from the inside of Stop And Go Texaco, (cigarettes and misc.), the final receipt that they gave us for the credit purchase was for 26.227 gallons of unleaded fuel. We did NOT get gas their and furthermore, do not have a vehicle that would even hold that many gallons. Obviously something is wrong with the integrity of how they are running their business and how they do their book keeping, that or they are just ripping off their customers. I have to say that if this purchase had only been for like $20 or less and was taken out 3 times, I might not have faught for it and spent soo much time on this trying to get our money back because $40 would not have been worth this stress, but I do wonder how many customers that this has happened to and not taken it any further to get their money back.
I feel sorry for the customers that don't have access to the internet and would have to wait until they received their bank account statement in the mail a month later only to find out what had happened to them.
Vicki
Gainesville, Florida
U.S.A.
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