This is an email I wrote to the District Manager of a Carinos location in Boise Idaho regarding a visit on 11 December 2010, and have yet to get even an acknowledgment that it was received. Names, other that Mr. Hollis, are altered for obvious reasons:

Mr. Hollis,
I am writing to register a rather distressing complaint on my recent visit to Carino's at 3551 E. Fairview Ave in Meridian, Idaho. On 11 December 2010, I visited your establishment with my girlfriend, Monica, and friend William. While we enjoyed the meal and were satisfied with the service during the meal, the issue herein lies with the server's mistakes when ringing up our cards to pay for the bill (which took 15 minutes from the time she took our cards to the time she brought the receipts). We asked Kelsey M. (10061) to split the $62.72 bill as follows: $13.50 on William's card, and the remainder to be halved between my card and Monica's ($24.61 each). When we received our receipts, mine and William's appeared correct as the receipts showed the amounts mentioned previously. However, Monica's showed that the entire bill ($62.72) had been charged to her card instead of just $24.61. Upon seeing this, Monica proceeded to log onto her mobile banking site to check the charge and discovered she had indeed been charged for the full bill. This then prompted William and I to check ours, too. William's was correct at $13.50. My bank, however, didn't even match the receipt I was asked to sign ($24.61), and showed two separate charges of $13.50 and $49.22. When we asked Kelsey, and showed her our phones with the current charges, she assured us that everything was correct and that "that's just the way it gets printed out." We asked her to double check the transactions and Kelsey took all three cards again, including the receipts, and did not return for another 15 minutes. When she returned, the $62.72 receipt for Monica's card had disappeared and Monica was given one instead for $24.61. Kelsey did not explain what, if any, issues there were, did not offer an apology or even tell us that the charges had been corrected; she just left the table and did not come back. As this was not an acceptable situation, Monica went to find the store Manager, Meaghan, as we felt uncomfortable leaving the restaurant without knowing for sure the status of the charges rendered. We explained the ordeal and showed her the info from our banks. Meaghan then took our receipts and cards, and came back, explaining that she did something so that the charges would not go through since as a manager, she had to approve the charges anyway. Her explanation was very ambiguous and didn't satisfactorily remove our doubt that the issue had been corrected. However, we took her word that it would be fixed, signed our respective receipts and departed.
The big issue here, Mr. Hollis, is that this debacle tied up an extra $62.72 between mine and Monica's accounts for 4 days. With this being the Information Age, and the way banks are trying to squeeze every dime in fees they can from the consumer, this was an especially dangerous blunder since today’s banks view a “pending” charge the same as an approved charge. In other words, I did not have the extra monies available to me and thus was unable to complete my errands for over half a week. And as I'm sure you're aware, times are tight along with the Holidays being among us. That night was supposed to be a treat for the three of us, along with a Christmas shopping day, both of which were thwarted by erroneous human error and general lack of customer service or compassion. As of the sending of this email (16 December 2010), the charges have been corrected on both mine and Monica’s accounts.
What I would like to know is your plan for ensuring this circumstance never happens again: Whether it involves retraining your staff on proper procedures when handling credit cards; reminding your management that while the wait staff may make more mistakes due to their high-stress jobs, your managers should be more apologetic toward their customers when mistakes are made; a written apology from you and Meaghan with a promise to do right by the patrons who help keep you in business; or an incentive put our faith back in your restaurant and come back again one day. Had a phrase anywhere close to “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry about this. This was an honest mistake, I’ll take care of it right away!” been given at the dinner table that night, you would not be receiving this email and you would have 3 returning customers. As of now, none of us plan on visiting your establishment anymore.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the receipt and charge totals:
Total Bill $62.72

$13.50 William's receipt
$24.61 my receipt
$62.72 Monica's receipt

$13.50 charged to William
$13.50 charged to me
$49.22 charged to me
$62.72 charged to Monica

$138.94 total charged among all three cards for the initial $62.72 bill
**Time stamped screenshots of our banks’ online banking websites are available, along with the receipts, upon your request.

Sincerely,
Bradley