I agree. The first time our card got stolen last year, it was part of a huge scam in our community in which hundreds of people's cards got compromised. I believe it was a major crime, though I haven't read in the paper that the "bad guys" have yet been caught.

The second time was last Thanksgiving at a local - and very fine - restaurant. That time, I think the problem was human error -- and while our losses were bigger, I don't think anyone else's cards were involved.

We'd attended a lovely Thanksgiving buffet held in the ballroom of on of the largest resorts here. OUR card ended up getting used to charge the dinners for 5 different groups.

We first noticed the error when the waitress gave us the wallet to sign for the charge they'd just run for our two dinners. The ticket inside was not ours. It was for a couple of bottles of very fine wine, totaling several hundred dollars.

We immediately pointed this out to the waitress. She was embarrassed, as she hadn't looked at the ticket -- just brought it to us.

She took the wallet back to the person running all the charges for the whole buffet, and when she came back, she gave us credits for two other group's meals, which had accidentally been charged to us.

By the time we got back home, and checked out account online, we discovered that a total of 6 party's meals -- totally over a thousand dollars -- had been charged to us.

Given that it was Thanksgiving weekend, it took several days to get this all straightened out. But in the end we did get all the erroneous charges removed from our card.

And the resort management also sent us a letter which apologized and gave us two free meals. We used that to go and enjoy a prime rib buffet at the resort, a month later.

Bottom line what I learned from this: Pay cash for our meals whenever possible. And if that is not possible, no matter how busy you are,be sure to read the charge receipt -- don't just sign it!! Beyond that, one last thing: Check your monthly statements religiously...mistakes DO get made.