Originally Posted by
mad cow disease
Hello, long time lurker. Any input on fraudulent charges on these cards and how they are handled by AMEX? I loaded $400 on to the BB at a local Wal-mart today, and when I got home noticed a charge for around $70 had posted...from that very same Wal-mart.
I tried to load at my first register, the cashier was an idiot and couldn't get the card working. I loaded $200 successfully at two other registers, did a bit of shopping (CHARGED TO ANOTHER CC) and then left.
Does anybody have an idea where this charge might have come from, and the odds of it falling off as just an authorization? I still have the card in hand; the only thing I can think of is that the card was skimmed or that cashier #1 somehow put through an authorization inadvertently? The timestamp is from just around when I was loading the BB, so the timing is quite suspicious.
Edit: I just looked at my two load receipts, and there is a 2.5 minute gap between the time stamp on the first load and the next. In between, my balance has shrunk by the ~$70 in question. So I've ended up with $330 or so instead of the $400. Unbelievable. I guess it is cashier #2 who is suspect.
similar thing happened to me with a regular register loading Serve. Let's say my card has 0.00 to begin with and I load $500, end balance =$500. Then I proceed to reload another $500 to same card, the beginning balance should be $500 + new load of $500 = $1000. But when I checked the debit receipt, it showed end balance was still $500. I showed cashier receipt and she called for supervisor who proceeded to check balance on my card and it showed $1K. I proceeded to check Serve app to see if coincides with what register said and it did so it was alright.
it is best to check your balance online to find out if it tallies with your deposits and if not, it is best to clarify it with their cash department immediately and hopefully, they issue a refund to you if the mistake is on their end. Our WMs issue cash refunds for glitches in MO printing and I prefer that than refunds going back to 'debit' cards.