I'm always puzzled by strip clubs charging thousands of dollars on a customer's credit card. Over the years I've sometimes found incorrect charges on my cards (not from strip clubs). I disputed the charges and the credit card company removed the charges for me.
Well, I have used my credit cards to pay for drinks and food in clubs for 12 years. It seems to me that credit cards are safer than cash. You can dispute charges that are not correct. I have had a couple double charges and so forth at the Flight Club over many years, and when I brought the problem to their attention they fixed the problem. Of course, they don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The same story recently happened in a Las Vegas club. I think they start by padding the bill for a few drinks and skimming cash. When that goes unnoticed or at least unchallenged the greed takes over and the stakes get raised. They know that many customers value anonymity and not making a scene over a few dollars and many customers wouldn’t even notice or check.
The same scam happens in restaurants and bars also but restaurants and bars are more likely to have bills scrutinized and they don’t usually have a thug bouncer factor or the desire to remain anonymous on the part of the customers.
What Nixur said - I could see this happening in a dive owned by a shady mofo, on first instinct I would not think it'd happen in a corporate club like Ricks - but of course it can happen in any club and there can be shady dancers and staff doing shit that doesn't happen at the other corporate clubs - Tootsies is owned by Ricks and I always felt it was well run/managed (Tootsies has not felt like a shady place not withstanding the sharky-dancers).
One of the plaintiffs, perhaps others also, said he was drunk (and using a credit-card) - so I kinda wonder if they were at fault (got blasted drunk and can't remember their actions).
I wouldn't put it past any club to do shady shit but I also wonder how legit the plaintiffs are and if there are free of any responsibility (although two other long time TUSCLers in the past have stated having a similar episode (at different clubs) where they don't remember what happened during their SC visit and woke up someplace else as if they had been drugged, and they were not heavy drinkers if I recall).
I disagree that using a credit card in a strip club is a rookie move. I do it frequently to pay for food and drinks and have never had a problem. It allows me to save my cash for more important things. What is a rookie move is to get so drunk you don’t know what you are doing and charge large sums or allow others to charge large sums to your CC. I also wouldn’t use a CC in a dive I have never been to before, but in general I don’t think there is anything wrong with it.
I'm personally 50/50 on credit cards at strip clubs. I don't like leaving a paper-trail, so I don't generally do it. But I don't think it's the kind of risk that shows up in many news stories, about how someone was "over-charged" by zillions and lost all the money. Usually a credit-card will protect the customer (me!) much more than the merchant, especially in situations in which "marginal" industries are involved (like strip clubs, massage parlors), because those businesses are almost always less long-lived (they re-organize their LLC or Inc. status, open and close, go into bankruptcy, get new owners, etc. etc.) than most more-mainstream businesses. In my experience, over about 30 plus years of using credit cards, I've had maybe twenty total disputes and 100% of them have been resolved in some manner that I agree with -- usually, entirely in my favor; once in a while, it turned out that "oh look, I really DID make that charge, whoops my mistake, OK I'll pay for it!" which isn't exactly "in my favor" but is still what I would (have to) agree with. Just make a phone call, then send in the documents they require, and it should turn out for the best.
For credit card disputes, the absolute worst situation I ever had was with a rental-car company which reproduced my digital signature from the tablet at the check-in counter onto about seventy repeated pages of a document, thus pretending that I had signed and agreed to them all. This was the rental-car company's dirty trick for upgrading the negotiation to the next person in line and circumventing the automatic resolution in favor of the customer and against them, of course; by the time a REAL HUMAN was looking at this supposed evidence, they were again dealing with evidence not very much in their favor. I would have litigated if necessary, on that one, if the credit card people hadn't started being sensible, because it was such a large amount of money that I had not agreed to. But the rental-car people eventually got a human on the other end of the phone and we agreed to a reasonable mid-point and called it quits. Next time I use Hertz I'll be very leery of their subterfuge at the counter and will finger-sign the tablet "Mickey Mantle" to get around that kind of digital bullshit.
So, when I hear about dudes getting "cheated" by using their credit-card at a strip club, and then finding out that too much money was charged against that card? I just think the dude is an idiot. PHONE THE CREDIT CARD PEOPLE, dumbass. Worst that can happen is that you get video surveillance that PROVES that you were present, signing sheets of paper, and using your credit card, in which case the video surveillance ALSO probably proves that you're DRUNK OFF YOUR GOURD which, in fact, vitiates any capacity to consent to that kind of transaction and puts the onus again on the merchant to have not tried to get you to agree to something you couldn't agree to, since he was the sober one. Duh.
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They got that backwards, correct?
The same scam happens in restaurants and bars also but restaurants and bars are more likely to have bills scrutinized and they don’t usually have a thug bouncer factor or the desire to remain anonymous on the part of the customers.
One of the plaintiffs, perhaps others also, said he was drunk (and using a credit-card) - so I kinda wonder if they were at fault (got blasted drunk and can't remember their actions).
I wouldn't put it past any club to do shady shit but I also wonder how legit the plaintiffs are and if there are free of any responsibility (although two other long time TUSCLers in the past have stated having a similar episode (at different clubs) where they don't remember what happened during their SC visit and woke up someplace else as if they had been drugged, and they were not heavy drinkers if I recall).
Some strip clubs have the uncorked wine bottles behind the bar be mixed with half Everclear. You wont taste it.
For credit card disputes, the absolute worst situation I ever had was with a rental-car company which reproduced my digital signature from the tablet at the check-in counter onto about seventy repeated pages of a document, thus pretending that I had signed and agreed to them all. This was the rental-car company's dirty trick for upgrading the negotiation to the next person in line and circumventing the automatic resolution in favor of the customer and against them, of course; by the time a REAL HUMAN was looking at this supposed evidence, they were again dealing with evidence not very much in their favor. I would have litigated if necessary, on that one, if the credit card people hadn't started being sensible, because it was such a large amount of money that I had not agreed to. But the rental-car people eventually got a human on the other end of the phone and we agreed to a reasonable mid-point and called it quits. Next time I use Hertz I'll be very leery of their subterfuge at the counter and will finger-sign the tablet "Mickey Mantle" to get around that kind of digital bullshit.
So, when I hear about dudes getting "cheated" by using their credit-card at a strip club, and then finding out that too much money was charged against that card? I just think the dude is an idiot. PHONE THE CREDIT CARD PEOPLE, dumbass. Worst that can happen is that you get video surveillance that PROVES that you were present, signing sheets of paper, and using your credit card, in which case the video surveillance ALSO probably proves that you're DRUNK OFF YOUR GOURD which, in fact, vitiates any capacity to consent to that kind of transaction and puts the onus again on the merchant to have not tried to get you to agree to something you couldn't agree to, since he was the sober one. Duh.