This is not a happy story with a happy ending, but it does demonstrate the importance of paying attention when paying bills, even if they are small bills for coffee and cake. After not paying attention when paying her restaurant bill, one woman is out nearly $8,000.
We move to Switzerland, where Frenchwoman Olesja Schemjakowa was enjoying coffee and snacks in a cafe near Zurich. Her bill for coffee and cake came to $23.76. I’m hoping that cake was spectacular. Schemjakowa left after paying the bill with her credit card. She received her credit card statement when she returned to France weeks later. The snack had cost her $7,732 at the cafe. (That had better be some truly incredible cake).
Schemjakowa used her PIN code (7686) as the tip when she paid her bill at the cafe’s electronic register. (If only Schemjakowa had a 0000 PIN code). She contacted her credit card company and requested that the charges be reversed. The credit card company informed her that the charges were not fraudulent and that they could not be reversed. When Schemjakowa contacted the local Swiss police station, she was told there was nothing they could do because no crime had been committed.
Schemjakowa contacted the cafe’s owner, who stated that the money would be refunded. Weeks went by with no money being refunded. The owner eventually stopped contacting Schemjakowa. The cafe owner apparently filed for bankruptcy and closed the business, which suggests that the suspect timing had something to do with making $7,732 on a single order of cake and coffee.
“I just can’t understand how the cafe owner can just keep the money, and I can not do anything about it,” the 37-year-old woman told the Swiss newspaper Blick. “That’s just not fair!”
Schemjakowa’s chances of ever getting her money back appear to be slim. “I’ve been told there’s a one percent chance I’ll get my money back,” she explained. So you’re saying it’s possible? The moral of the story is to pay attention when paying, or you may end up paying a high price later.
