To The Editor,

I went to dinner at restaurant in Lehigh Acres this past week. The bill was $37.52. I paid by credit card and added a $5 tip. That tip represents a little over 13 percent and reflects the level of service I received. The total credit charge was $42.52.

Because of recent news about credit cards and scamming, I religiously check my balances on a daily basis. Imagine my surprise when I noticed in my online credit card account which is updated instantly, that the restaurant had billed my credit card $45.02. They essentially added $2.50 to my bill after I signed my name and left.

I returned to the restaurant the following day when it opened at 11 a.m. I asked the hostess to send me the manager. She inquired what it was in reference to and I mentioned it was about my credit card bill. She acknowledged that she gets a lot of those requests and got the manager for me.

The manager explained that his credit card machine has been adding 20 percent to the bill automatically for a year and he is unable to get the credit card machine vendor to stop doing this. I told him that is fraud and what does he intend to do about it.

I expected that he could immediately charge back the difference. He says there is nothing he can do about it and suggest I take it up with my bank. I did do the math and by the “machine” adding $2.50 to my bill, brought the total tip to 20 percent exactly.

Going to the bank and trying to get $2.50 back is not worth my time. Also, not many people are as careful as I am and may simply not notice a $2.50 difference at the end of the month when their statement comes with a month’s worth of entries.

I also told the manager that, by him essentially taking $2.50 away from me, he has lost my future business and the future business of all my friendsI tell this to.

The manager admitted to me that this has been happening over a year now. Someone, either the credit card machine vendor, or the manager of the restaurant is fraudulently taking money from its customers.

Robert Hipperson

Fort Myers