http://www.avpress.com/n/27/0327_s3.hts

By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - When George Beane went to his neighborhood Burger King on Tuesday afternoon, he got four burgers his way, all right, but at a super-sized cost.

In fact, the charge to his debit card for two $1 Whopper Jrs. and two $1 Rodeo cheeseburgers at the drive-up window at the 2606 East Palmdale Blvd. restaurant was $4,334.33 instead of the $4.33 it should have been.

Because the debit card was linked to Beane's checking account at Bank of America, the electronic charge "went through and left us penniless," Beane's wife, Pat, said Friday.

Their mortgage payment was due at the time, and her fear was that they not only would have no money to pay new bills, but the checks sent for their old ones would bounce, she said.

"We were thinking, 'No, not now!' " of the overcharge, Pat Beane said.

Terri Woody, manager of the oldest Burger King in the Antelope Valley, said the mistake was made by one of her best and most long-term employees. The order was placed at the restaurant's drive-through, so the cashier on duty put the card and the amount to be charged into the electronic reader, Woody said.

"What happened was, the cashier in the box who takes the cards and slides them was interchanging a headset with another person, and she didn't think she put (the amount to be charged) in," so she entered the digits 433 a second time, the manager said.

The cashier "realized it when she went to hand the receipt to him and she said, 'Oh, my God,' and apologized, but it was too late because it had already gone through," she said.

"This cashier has been with me for 20 years, and she's never had a mistake before. She was so upset," Woody said. "I felt really bad, too, and ultimately we gave them the food for free for putting them in that position."

"I just wanted to make sure they get their money back," so Woody called Burger King district manager Scott Ralston. With Ralston's assistance, and calls to Burger King's corporate offices, the money was returned to the account Friday morning.

The fact the bank needed the full three days to reverse an electronic charge process that took only a split second left the couple with no money other than what they had in their pockets, Pat Beane said.

Bank officials said they would reverse the charge only if a representative of Burger King came forward and confirmed the error, Beane said. Even when the error was confirmed, the bank said the funds were on a three-day hold and nothing could be done to release them, she said.

Bank of America supervisor Joel Solorio said that in most instances no correction is made until the bank confirms the transaction and error.

"There are two parts to a purchase," Solorio said. The first is when a card is swiped through a machine and the funds are confirmed to be in the account; the second is when the transaction is confirmed at midnight "and three days later, the money comes out of the account."

During those three days, the money is held "in authorization" so the account holder will not believe the money is still available, Solorio said. If an error is reported and confirmed, the funds can be returned to the user's account after the three-day authorization period, he said.

The process is intended to prevent bank customers from spending money that no longer is available in their accounts and to give the bank time to confirm the facts of any transaction before completing a transfer of funds, Solorio said.

For those three days, "those were the most expensive value burgers in history," Pat Beane said.