Woman Faces $2,000 In Charges After North Carolina Restaurant Posts Her Credit Card Online

A customer at a North Carolina cafe faces thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges after she says an employee posted her credit card to social media.

Rhonda Deaver is a regular at Smith’s Cafe in Kinston, eating there after her weekly doctor’s appointment. She dined in last Tuesday, and as she was headed home, her bank representative called and alerted her she left her credit card.

Deaver turned around and headed back to the cafe. When she arrived, she says an employee told her they tried to find her by taking photos of the front and back side of her credit card and posting them to a Kinston Facebook group.

The initial post did not block out her credit card numbers, Deaver said.

“I couldn’t believe that they did that, but I was sick, thinking I might be responsible for all those charges,” she said.

By the time Deaver retrieved her credit card, it was too late. She said it had already been used a lot, racking up over $2,000 worth of charges.

“A whole lot of declines – but a whole lot that went through,” she said.

Deaver said her bank closed the account. But she’s still in the process of disputing the charges, and she said the incident has hurt her financially.

“I live on a fixed income, and there’s not like there’s extra money every month to cover those bills that someone else charged on my card,” she said.

Meredith Radford of the Better Business Bureau said no one should post a credit card or identification online to find a person. She said even blocking out the numbers to post it is still a threat.

“I would be worried about people being able to reverse that somehow,” she said.

The owner of Smith’s Cafe declined to comment.