Credit card fraud

I don't want to run afoul of the board rules, so I'll be deliberately vague here...

According to other media sources, a recently closed restaurant in in East Lakeview appears to have been engaged in widespread theft in the form of credit card fraud. Review after review on Yelp reports the same thing: Credit card charges were altered--often by adding one or even two digits to the bill's total--and diner after diner was shocked to discover that a $70 charge, for example, became a $700 charge, or a $45 charge became a $1045 charge.

I'm astonished on so many levels. How dumb of a criminal do you have to be to alter credit card receipts in such an egregious way that customers are almost guaranteed to notice? (I mean, if a $70 tab was edited to become a $76 tab, I'd almost certainly never notice. But I will immediately spot a tab that's grown by 10 times the original amount.) Also, how does this not immediately raise red flags with their credit card processor? If I'm a business that normally runs tabs that average $100, you'd think my bank might start asking questions if the average tab immediately jumped to $700 -- and all of those huge bills were resulting in chargebacks. Not to mention: The Yelp review seem to indicate this was occurring for at least 6 weeks, if not longer. (I had to laugh at one of the final reviews left by a woman who complained that only at the end of the meal did the restaurant inform her their credit card machine was out of order. Her review was indignant. Ha! Count your lucky stars, lady.)

Yes, I saw the reports, too:

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2014/ ... ations.php

=R=

Credit card fraud happens all the time but is usually more subtle than that. I guess they planned to grab a lot of money in a week and run off very quickly.

Here are three other credit card frauds that I have encountered:

Pizza shop in Crystal Lake stole a friend's credit card number and was using it to make multiple purchases all over McHenry Co. Since the employee lived in Kane County and checked his accounts religiously, he contacted the sheriff's office and they arrested the employee.

Same shop charged one of our company cards with multiple charges, some of which were legitimate. We found that they were retaining our credit card numbers when we placed orders. That is a no-no these days.

A meat market in Detroit charged me a small amount (under $15). While I had intended to head to Detroit that month, my trip had been canceled. I noted that the amount was identical to a charge that I had made approximately one year earlier, which was a legitimate charge. They were smart. I reviewed my credit card statement and almost missed it.

I assume that Pedro Suarez' Sabor Cubano has no relationship with Christina Hernandez's long closed restaurant in Schauberg...

What happened to Christina? Her restaurant was remakable.