Source: Irfan Setiawan / Getty
A local woman is stuck with a financial headache after she left a Kinston restaurant without her credit card.
WRAL spoke with Rhonda Deaver, a regular at Smith’s Cafe on US-258. Last week, Deaver accidentally left her credit card at the restaurant after paying for her meal.
“I turned around and came right back,” Deaver said.
Although Deaver was quick to turn around, she was soon hit with a slew of unrecognizable charges. Turns out, by the time Deaver returned, an employee of the cafe that was looking for her had already posted a photo of the card (with all of her information visible) to a group on Facebook.
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Deaver’s family immediately called her as soon as they saw the post, but it was too late by then. Over $2,000 in charges hit her account.
“It had been used a whole lot,” Deaver explained. “[There were] a whole lot of declines but a whole lot that went through. I live on a fixed income, and there’s not extra money every month to cover those bills.”
Deaver’s bank closed the account, but she is still in the process of disputing the charges.
The owner of Smith’s Cafe was reached… but he had no comment.
What NOT To Do
Although the gesture was made with good intentions, it is never good to post any financial information and documents on the web.
According to Meredith Radford of the Better Business Bureau, posting photos of credit cards online is never safe, even if the poster blocks the numbers.
“You definitely should not post the credit card online,” Radford said. “I would be worried about people being able to reverse that somehow. And even if it’s to find the person, it’s easy enough to cancel your credit card and get a new one with your company. It’s not worth it.”
