Woman loses thousands after entering PIN as a tip amount
Police don't consider the case "criminally relevant"
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TRAVEL Tipping
Tipping can be complicated. Do you add 10%? 20%? Should you even tip at all? Well, one woman has found herself in hot water after a critical tipping error. Olesja Schemjakowa, a 37-year-old Russian woman, was dining with her son at the New Point cafe near Zurich. After their meal, Schemjakowa paid with her credit card. When it was time to enter in her tip, the woman entered her four-digit PIN instead. This meant she paid 7,686 Swiss francs for a meal that should have cost just 23.70 SFr, Munchies reports.
The error led to a 32,000% tip, which Olesja didn’t notice until a month later. After receiving her credit card bill, the woman called her bank and tried to defuse the situation. She was told that accidental charges aren’t technically fraudulent and Munchies reports that the police said the incident wasn’t “criminally relevant”. The owner of New Point, Cengiz Gökduman, wasn’t cooperative either. After going back-and-forth, he closed the restaurant and filed for bankruptcy. Things aren’t looking good for Olesja. “I’ve been told there may still be a 1 percent chance that I'll see my money back”, she said, as reported by Munchies. The moral of the story? Consider tipping in cash.