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Would anybody here take the time to dispute a $0.25 charge? I wouldn't... This also reminds me of something that I have wanted from credit card companies for

by blhack 16y ago

Would anybody here take the time to dispute a $0.25 charge? I wouldn't... This also reminds me of something that I have wanted from credit card companies for a very very long time...imagine if there was a protocol for the CC companies to accept a record of not only the amount, but also the transaction that you made? Basically the CC machine sends a copy of the receipt to the card processor... Carrying around paper receipts in my wallet for doing expense reports is a massive pain in the ass.

zck 16y ago
A friend and I had kicked around a startup idea where you would take a picture of your receipt with your phone and upload it to our service. Then it would do OCR, and at the end of the month, you could easily reconcile your statement with the receipts you took pictures of. One benefit is that you don't have to trust the credit card company, or the merchant you buy from, which is a problem of your proposed system.
- blhack 16y ago
  Is the resolution of most cell-phone cameras good enough for this? I frequently use my phone to take pictures of stuff I would normally just write down (error message after a kernel panic, asset tag, where I parked my car, etc. etc.), but for things the size of a receipt, I can't read it... What phone were you using?
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    I routinely use my iphone 3gs to take photos of things like that; my glasses and contact prescriptions live in my phone as images, I'm not even certain where the originals are now. I'm guessing that anything that's come out around the same time would do fine in good lighting.
  - zck 16y ago
    For example, the iphone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera.
  - GFischer 16y ago
    My Nokia N86 8mp certainly is :) (though it has some trouble focusing at short range). I expect cell phone cameras like that will become commonplace in the next year or so, so it's a good time for startups to abuse that.
- brianbreslin 16y ago
  check out shoeboxed.com i think they have this as part of their service. great idea nonetheless.
- djb_hackernews 16y ago
  I remember a few months back some guys here on HN forming a startup based on this concept. Can't find any links. Maybe they are YC funded as well.
rbritton 16y ago
I disputed a $0.10 charge with my ISP and got it taken off the bill.
drewcrawford 16y ago
I scan all my receipts every couple of days and dump them in Evernote. Then I simply run down all my transactions on the CC bill once a month and search Evernote for the dollar amount. So if my CC bill says I spent 40.65 at Walmart, I type in 40.65 into Evernote, and sure enough, there's the receipt. I save about $70 a year doing this and it takes all of about five minutes a month.
- pyre 16y ago
  You get $70 worth of bogus charges per year?
  - drewcrawford 16y ago
    You'd be surprised how many "innocent" one-digit typos there are.
    - sandipagr 16y ago
      wow I didn't know about that. Time to start looking at the bills more closely. Thanks
    - messel 16y ago
      how much time does it take to protect that $70 per year? is it fair compensation for your time, or mostly for peace of mind.
      - blhack 16y ago
        For me (although I don't do this) it's matter of principle. For example, companies that send me spam catch a nerve. Here's my thing with spam: it's cheap or, in the eyes of most PHBs, free. When you send me a spam, what you're saying to me as a potential customer is "You're not valuable enough for me to take 30 seconds and pick up a phone to call you. Instead, I'm going to monopolize a few seconds of your time every day so that you have to see my name while you're deleting things from your inbox." It's incredibly rude, incredibly disrespectful, and it really ticks me off. So if a company that I do business with adds me to their "waste this person's time" list, I'll take a few minutes to send an email to my rep asking for them to explain why they value me so little. Is this a waste of 5 minutes? Would it be easier to just write a spamassassin rule to filter this stuff out? Yeah, probably, but it makes me feel good; it's the principle of it. I suggest GP is the same way...
johnohara 16y ago
It generally costs $2.50-$3.00 for cash withdrawls using out-of-network ATM machines. So I doubt I'd take the time either. I know it should be taken seriously, and I probably would report it if I caught it, but it's more like a leak than a theft.
noodle 16y ago
i did. sort of. i have a credit card that i save in cases of emergencies, and i noted one day on mint that it started getting very small, random charges. i literally hadn't used it at all in several years. i decided that calling the fraud department would only be slightly more of a hassle than paying a bill i wouldn't normally pay, so i reported the activities.
kadavy 16y ago
I used to do inbound customer service for a very large phone company, and I was on a line dedicated for people who were calling to dispute an 83 cent charge. I got plenty* of calls on that line from very angry customers. * the 83 cent charge was passed on to the consumer by the phone company. It was to cover a large fee the FTC made them pay.

by blhack 16y ago

zck 16y ago

A friend and I had kicked around a startup idea where you would take a picture of your receipt with your phone and upload it to our service. Then it would do OCR, and at the end of the month, you could easily reconcile your statement with the receipts you took pictures of. One benefit is that you don't have to trust the credit card company, or the merchant you buy from, which is a problem of your proposed system.

blhack 16y ago
Is the resolution of most cell-phone cameras good enough for this? I frequently use my phone to take pictures of stuff I would normally just write down (error message after a kernel panic, asset tag, where I parked my car, etc. etc.), but for things the size of a receipt, I can't read it... What phone were you using?
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  I routinely use my iphone 3gs to take photos of things like that; my glasses and contact prescriptions live in my phone as images, I'm not even certain where the originals are now. I'm guessing that anything that's come out around the same time would do fine in good lighting.
- zck 16y ago
  For example, the iphone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera.
- GFischer 16y ago
  My Nokia N86 8mp certainly is :) (though it has some trouble focusing at short range). I expect cell phone cameras like that will become commonplace in the next year or so, so it's a good time for startups to abuse that.
brianbreslin 16y ago
check out shoeboxed.com i think they have this as part of their service. great idea nonetheless.
djb_hackernews 16y ago
I remember a few months back some guys here on HN forming a startup based on this concept. Can't find any links. Maybe they are YC funded as well.

rbritton 16y ago

I disputed a $0.10 charge with my ISP and got it taken off the bill.

drewcrawford 16y ago

I scan all my receipts every couple of days and dump them in Evernote. Then I simply run down all my transactions on the CC bill once a month and search Evernote for the dollar amount. So if my CC bill says I spent 40.65 at Walmart, I type in 40.65 into Evernote, and sure enough, there's the receipt. I save about $70 a year doing this and it takes all of about five minutes a month.

pyre 16y ago
You get $70 worth of bogus charges per year?
- drewcrawford 16y ago
  You'd be surprised how many "innocent" one-digit typos there are.
  - sandipagr 16y ago
    wow I didn't know about that. Time to start looking at the bills more closely. Thanks
  - messel 16y ago
    how much time does it take to protect that $70 per year? is it fair compensation for your time, or mostly for peace of mind.
    - blhack 16y ago
      For me (although I don't do this) it's matter of principle. For example, companies that send me spam catch a nerve. Here's my thing with spam: it's cheap or, in the eyes of most PHBs, free. When you send me a spam, what you're saying to me as a potential customer is "You're not valuable enough for me to take 30 seconds and pick up a phone to call you. Instead, I'm going to monopolize a few seconds of your time every day so that you have to see my name while you're deleting things from your inbox." It's incredibly rude, incredibly disrespectful, and it really ticks me off. So if a company that I do business with adds me to their "waste this person's time" list, I'll take a few minutes to send an email to my rep asking for them to explain why they value me so little. Is this a waste of 5 minutes? Would it be easier to just write a spamassassin rule to filter this stuff out? Yeah, probably, but it makes me feel good; it's the principle of it. I suggest GP is the same way...

johnohara 16y ago

It generally costs $2.50-$3.00 for cash withdrawls using out-of-network ATM machines. So I doubt I'd take the time either. I know it should be taken seriously, and I probably would report it if I caught it, but it's more like a leak than a theft.

noodle 16y ago

i did. sort of. i have a credit card that i save in cases of emergencies, and i noted one day on mint that it started getting very small, random charges. i literally hadn't used it at all in several years. i decided that calling the fraud department would only be slightly more of a hassle than paying a bill i wouldn't normally pay, so i reported the activities.

kadavy 16y ago

I used to do inbound customer service for a very large phone company, and I was on a line dedicated for people who were calling to dispute an 83 cent charge. I got plenty* of calls on that line from very angry customers. * the 83 cent charge was passed on to the consumer by the phone company. It was to cover a large fee the FTC made them pay.