I checked my bank account this morning, only to find that I was overdrawn by $276.

Not possible, I said to myself. There should be plenty of money in that account.

I checked to make sure that the deposit I’d made last Friday had gone through. It had. No problem.

There was another deposit listed, however, dated 1/18/06, for $757.00. I know I didn’t make that deposit, so I checked it out. Turned out to be a refund from Salsarita.

Further investigation revealed that – after I had lunch there on Friday, which cost (you guessed it) $7.57 – they charged my account $757.00 on the 17th. This, of course, placed me into dire straits, and resulted in about $300.00 in overdraft fees when my mid-month bills were sent out, also on the 17th.

Salsarita apparently realized the error of their ways, and refunded my account the $757.00 yesterday (without explanation). Of course, the $300.00 in overdrafts left me still in the hole, and when three other charges came in last night I was charged another $90, for a grand total of $390.00 in overdraft fees.

To rub margarita salt in the wound, Salsarita apparently charged my account TWICE for the $7.57 my meal had actually cost.

I drove over to the Wachovia at Cotswold (anticipating an additional showdown with the manager at Salsarita), and asked my friendly personal banker Jack if he could refund the $390, since I was clearly not at fault.

“No,” he said. “Not an amount that large. I could refund ninety or a hundred dollars, but to refund $390 in overdraft charges is beyond my privileges.”

In other words, it was a matter for someone above his pay grade.

He called the manager at Salsarita – expecting, I presume, that they would refund the $390.00 in addition to the $757.00 they’d already refunded to my account. Of course, they refused. Jack was very apologetic. He said, though, that it wasn’t a bank error. I pointed out to him that the bank wouldn’t have to refund $390.00 if they hadn’t made a policy decision to pay out the largest checks first, and that if they’d gone from lowest to highest debit on the day I incurred $300 in overdraft fees, the actual total overdraft fee would have been only $90. I asked him – despite the issue of whether the bank had made an error – whether this practice was fair to the customer.

“Well, of course,” he said. “It is our presumption that the customer will have enough funds in his account to cover all checks.”

“Even if they’ve been dicked by Salsarita?” I asked.

He did agree, considering that argument, to call his district supervisor to request authorization to refund the $390.00. He asked me if I could leave a number where I could be reached.”

“I’ll be right here,” I said. “I’m not leaving until this is resolved.”

We stared at each other for a few minutes, waiting for the phone to ring.

It never did.

Finally, he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to go ahead and put the money back in your account. We – that is, the bank – will work with Salsarita to recover whatever we can.”

I thanked him for – apparently – exceeding the bounds of his pay grade authority. He made the necessary adjustments, and we parted amicably.

I crossed the parking lot to Salsarita. There was still, after all, the issue of them charging me twice for one meal.

I showed the manager the bank records.

“Oh, you’re the guy who got charged $757.00 for a shrimp burrito,” he said. “The bank just called about you.”

He explained that the restaurant’s computers went down sometime after lunch on Friday, and when they came back up they apparently were missing their decimals. As a result, some eighty-five customers were charged one hundred times their actual lunch bills.

He agreed that Salsarita owed me $7.57 for the double charge, and – in a moment of what appears to be uncustomary largesse – offered to refund both charges, essentially making my lunch last Friday free.

Actually, he offered to refund $15.58 to my card, when the actual amount should have been $15.14 (or $7.57 x 2).

Under the circumstances, and because I had to get back to work, I accepted the offer. I didn’t bother to correct his faulty math.

“I’ll need your credit card,” he said. “We have to do the credit in the back.”

I handed him my card, and he did something with the front cash register, which – after several steps – appears to have debited my bank account $15.58.

That’s right. Debited. Now my $757.00 burrito lunch cost only $31.00. I was, however, getting closer to even.

In the end, he made everything right, while still denying that Salsarita held any responsibility for the overdraft fees. He even offered to give me lunch for free.

I declined, as I had used my lunch time to deal with this mess, and had to get back to the office where I would work through my REAL lunch time to make up for the time I was at the bank and at Salsarita.

I also informed him that I had lost trust in Salsarita, and that any time I eat there again, I will have to be certain that I have enough CASH to pay for my meal. They’ll never see a debit card of mine again.

I think he cared. It was hard to tell, though.

It’s days like this that make me wish I hadn’t given up strong drink. A margarita would be nice right now.

But not from Salsarita.

God only knows what that would cost…