Attendees of the inaugural Sacred Rose music festival in Bridgeview, Illinois, woke up with more than a hangover Monday — they awoke to thousands of dollars in charges on their credit cards.
The venue, SeatGeek Stadium, had handled food and beverage for the festival, which ran from Friday to Saturday after Sunday’s events were canceled by inclement weather.
A glitch on the payment processing end resulted in customers having thousands of dollars added to their food and drink orders.
“Our payment processing is secure but had a configuration error. There was no exposure and/or fraud; we are PCI compliant. We are reversing all of these charges and you should see the amount credited to your card in 3-5 business days,” SeatGeek Stadium said in a statement made via the festival organizers on Facebook.
SeatGeek Stadium and Bridgeview village spokesperson Ray Hanania told WLS-TV, a Chicago ABC network-owned station, that the decimal points on customer tips may have been missing.
“The glitch involved the tip processing point of sale. When the tip went in, for some reason it added one or two zeroes to it,” Mr. Hanania explained.
Festival goers were shaken and stirred by the charges; some had to cancel debit or credit cards.
Brian Morrison told WBBM-TV, a Chicago CBS affiliate, that he was skeptical that the overcharges came from tips, saying, “That seems unlikely to me. I was making $15, $20 purchases, so I was making tips — $3, $4. Even if the decimal place is wrong, my tip is $300, $400 – it’s not $1,200.”
Caroline Woods told WGN-TV that she initially thought her card number had been stolen, noting, “My first instinct was ‘oh my God, there was someone there trying to steal credit card numbers,’ It felt really violating and was scary.”
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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