Always use a credit card for purchases (and pay it off completely every month!), then it's the credit card company's problem. (If you use a debit card then the money is taken directly from your account and you are in the same unfortunate situation as this person was.)
That’s exactly what I did. Threat you credit card as a debit card and you can keep spending under control. Plus you can get money back or rewards from the credit card.
I have had both my debit card and credit card stolen in the past. It took 10 minutes to rectify the charges on my credit card, but took me several days to convince my bank I didn’t go on a shopping spree. After that I removed the debit card from my wallet and pay everything with the credit card.
Frank Abagnale (of Catch Me if You Can fame) gave a talk at Google (available on YouTube) in which he said he doesn't possess a debit card: Too much risk. With a credit card, there's no risk. You can contest any charge, and it's not your money that's gone while the bureaucrats fiddle.
This reminds me of work at a client where there were some issues.
The code introduced a bug that causes all refunds to change to charges during settlement. When someone called in pissed and wanted a refund they'd be charged again 2 days later.
There was also an issue with an account transfer into their system where the mapping hadn't entirely been completed. They imported a bunch of subscriptions with their last billed date but didn't properly mark the status of the subscription. The system retried the rebills for some users back four years ago and tried to auth every month for the last four years for some users.
I paid $2,000 for a haircut once. It was meant to be $10 but the hairdresser didn't know how the machine worked (it was new) and entered the '00' for the cents. Two transactions in a row.
Five minutes later my credit card had reversed the charges.
Something similar happened to me at a hotel where they charged my card something just shy of about $10000. If it hadn't been for the fact that I was using a credit card that would have wiped out my checking account and probably taken weeks to get my money back.
It was the customer’s fault for not checking her receipt at the merchant and agreeing to the charge. The bank should keep the money due to customer negligence in her financial affairs.
[+] [-] gjvc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ibdf|5 years ago|reply
I have had both my debit card and credit card stolen in the past. It took 10 minutes to rectify the charges on my credit card, but took me several days to convince my bank I didn’t go on a shopping spree. After that I removed the debit card from my wallet and pay everything with the credit card.
[+] [-] DamnYuppie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lcuff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ckdarby|5 years ago|reply
The code introduced a bug that causes all refunds to change to charges during settlement. When someone called in pissed and wanted a refund they'd be charged again 2 days later.
There was also an issue with an account transfer into their system where the mapping hadn't entirely been completed. They imported a bunch of subscriptions with their last billed date but didn't properly mark the status of the subscription. The system retried the rebills for some users back four years ago and tried to auth every month for the last four years for some users.
[+] [-] torstenvl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alisonkisk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deadA1ias|5 years ago|reply
Five minutes later my credit card had reversed the charges.
I still had to pay $10 for the haircut.
[+] [-] alyandon|5 years ago|reply
I won't ever use a debit card.
[+] [-] iamleppert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|5 years ago|reply
The restaurant will return the money, either because they think it's the right thing to do, or because the bad PR isn't worth $5000.