An intended $5 tip turned into a $5,000 expense for a Bay Area woman.
As ABC station KGO reports, Linda Mathiesen made a purchase of $129.28 at a vape store in San Bruno, California. Upon entering a tip, Mathiesen pushed 5 and what she thought were two zeros, figuring that she was taking into account the decimal point for a total of $5.00.
Mathiesen had actually accidentally entered three zeroes, which would still come out to $50.00 if a decimal point was present. However, there was no decimal point to be found, and Mathiesen was horrified to see that she’d entered a tip of $5,000.
“I’m like, ‘WAIT! I want to delete this!'” Mathiesen says. She asked the clerk to reverse the tip, but he said he didn’t know how. She says that he later told her that the shop never received the money.
However, upon checking her banking statements, Mathiesen found that the $5,000 charge did indeed go through.
“He never erased it – nothing!” Mathiesen says. “I was livid.”
Mathiesen says she contacted her bank, Wells Fargo, over 20 times and spent over two hours on the phone during each call, only for the charge to remain. KGO reports that Wells Fargo attempted to close the case eight months later by claiming that “too much time had passed.”
Upon reaching out to Wells Fargo for comment, KGO reports that the bank contacted Mathiesen and said that she would be refunded the $5,000, plus interest.
“I’m so relieved!” Mathiesen says.