Customer hit with $2,000 bill after cafe employee makes brutal mistake in social media post

A woman has spoken out after being hit with $2,000 charges after a cafe employee made a pretty jaw-dropping mistake.

Rhonda Deaver is a regular customer at Smith's Cafe in Kinston, North Carolina, however, she might not be after this.

Prepare to squirm:

Last week on 30 April, Deaver visited the cafe after attending a doctor's appointment but accidentally left her card behind after paying.

When a bank representative called to notify her, she quickly turned around and headed back to the establishment, but in that time - in a bid to try and relocate the card with its owner - an employee of the cafe took to its Facebook page to make Deaver aware they had her card.

And well, you can probably guess what issue arose.

The incident took place at Smith's Cafe (Facebook/ Smith's Cafe)

In a bid to identify the card owner, the employee took to the group 'Word of Mouth Kinston'.

The caption of the post read: "Hey guys Mrs Rhonda Deaver you've left your debit card here at the store we have placed it in a secure location please if you know her let her know we have it and would love to make sure it's returned!!"

And what makes the caption so tragic, is that despite the employee's best intentions in letting Deaver know her card was safe and in 'a secure location', they also uploaded two pictures of the credit card - the front and the back.

Not only this, but they did so without editing the image, meaning Deaver's details were on full show for all of the social media group - sort code, bank account number and security code.

Alas, the card wasn't so 'secure' anymore and the employee's mistake led to some consequences for Deaver.

The employee uploaded pictures of the customer's card to Facebook (Facebook/ WSAZ)

Deaver told WCTI as quoted by ABC 7: "I couldn’t believe that they did that, but I was sick, thinking I might be responsible for all those charges."

By the time she was reunited with her card, thankfully, a 'whole lot' of charges had 'declined' but there were 'a whole lot that went through' before she was able to close the account connected to the card.

She told WRAL that she lives on a fixed income and so doesn't have 'extra money every month to cover the bills' that someone charged to her card - the card racking up a total of around $2,000 after its details were posted online.

Around $2,000 of charges were racked up on Deaver's card (YouTube/ WRAL)

Better Business Bureau's Mereditch Radford has since revealed that you should never upload a photograph of a debit or credit card to social media even if you block out the numbers, because someone may be able to reverse a scribbling out of the details in some way.

She added: "Even if it is to find the person, it’s easy enough to cancel your credit card and get a new one with your company, that’s not worth it."

UNILAD has contacted Smith's Cafe for comment.

Topics: Food and Drink, Instagram, Money, Social Media, US News, Facebook

Poppy Bilderbeck

Poppy Bilderbeck is a Senior Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from The University of Manchester in 2021 with a First in English Literature and Drama, where alongside her studies she was Editor-in-Chief of The Tab Manchester. Poppy is most comfortable when chatting about all things mental health, is proving a drama degree is far from useless by watching and reviewing as many TV shows and films as possible and is such a crisp fanatic the office has been forced to release them in batches.