Never leave a signed, swiped credit card slip with a merchant. At Seaforth Boat Rental, I left a swiped credit card deposit slip for a older catamaran rental. There was no wind that day and I never got 50' from the dock. I ended up bringing it back after about 10 minutes. I returned to the rental window, to pay for the rental ($35.00 for 2 hours, I had a 2 hour for 1 coupon.)
Serge Decorte, one of the owners of Seaforth Rentals was the cashier and said he " will be right back", and that he had to "check the boat." After about 15 minutes I decided to leave.
I received a letter from Mr. Decorte a couple days later in the mail, stating damages of $175.00 (charged to my credit card) to the hull of this junk sailboat.
There was no damage what so ever to the rental, and when I called Serge about it, he hung up on me.
I was actually hoping to pay nothing for the rental, considering the condition of this older pridle cat (very poorly and improperly rigged), the lack of wind and short duration of use. Of course I never expected this absolute nonsense about an incident and damage to the boat, as there was none.
My creditcard company said there was nothing they could do in this case. Another example The creditcard people mentioned is that if you leave a signed credit card reciept without filling in the total amount at the bottom, lets say at a restaurant, the merchant can fill in a higher amount.in these cases your recourse is small claims court.
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