Woman Mistakenly Tips Subway $7,100, Can't Get Money Back—'Unbelievable'

A diner says a Subway manager repeatedly refused to refund her after she accidentally tipped more than $7,100 for her lunchtime sandwich.

Vera Conner regularly orders the Italian sub at her local store in College Park, a city on the fringes of Atlanta, Georgia, where the meal usually costs $7.54 — but not this time. She says her credit card was charged with an eye-watering $7,112.98.

"I could have gone to Italy and got the sandwich," she told local news channel WSB-TV 2. Conner only noticed the charge when she checked her credit card statement at the end of the week: "I was like, oh, my God, how did this happen?" she said.

Accidentally over-tipping is a tough problem for any consumer to fall into because it is unclear exactly what legal rights they have in this situation. While a consumer can file a complaint about a company's products or services with the Better Business Bureau, and can report fraud and scams to the Federal Trade Commission, in this case, neither of those options quite applies because the tip was—at least initially—given willingly by the customer at the point of purchase.

It isn't clear whether the store has any duty to return a tip if a customer later says they made a mistake in paying it. Newsweek has approached the FTC seeking clarification about the matter.

Conner said she had attempted to pay for her sub with her card and then tried to type her telephone number into the device so she could collect the store's reward points. But she now believes she accidentally typed part of her phone number into the section asking her if she wanted to tip.

"I must have been keying it in the pad, and the screen changed," she said.

The disgruntled customer spoke to WSB-TV Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray on Monday and said the incident happened almost a month ago, but she was still out of pocket and had been embroiled in a weeks-long fight to have her money returned. "This is unbelievable because I feel like everyone that sees it has to know that it's a mistake," she said. "I've worked in retail before. I know how we tally up at the end of the night."

The Subway store manager repeatedly refused to discuss the tip with her, she alleged, and claimed that credit card company Bank of America had also initially declined to help when she disputed the payment.

Newsweek reached out to Subway by email about the allegations, seeking further information and comment.

A Bank of America spokesperson told Newsweek: "We asked Subway to refund the money to the client and we're pleased they have agreed to do so."

Subway has not yet responded to Newsweek. But after being contacted by Channel 2 about its story, Subway told Gray that Bank of America had requested a charge-back and that Subway was currently working on processing that for Conner.

Newsweek has also asked Subway what happened to the thousands of dollars received from Conner as a tip and whether that was shared out among staff, and, if so, whether the staff would have to return it in the event of Conner successfully obtaining her money back from the store.

It is far from the first time that an accidentally over-generous tip has hit the headlines.

In May 2018, a grandmother accidentally tipped $60,000 to a restaurant in Canada following a meal that cost $74.24. An image of her receipt went viral after her granddaughter shared the image online, but the transaction didn't go through.

Sometimes, huge tips are deliberate, such as the $810 tip a grateful couple left for a stressed waitress in Rhode Island in May 2022.

A waiter working in an upscale restaurant in Texas this August was tipped more than $18,000 after serving a table of big spenders who splashed out $33,557.50 on their food and drinks bill.

Update 11/22/23, 10:01 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a comment from Bank of America.