Hotel refund audit: refunds to a different card

Most refunds are fine. The one that goes to a card that was never charged is not.

What a normal refund looks like

A guest is charged, something goes wrong, the desk refunds part or all of it to the same card. The payment journal shows the charge and the refund on the same folio, same card token (last four digits), usually within a few days. That is the shape of a legitimate refund, and there will be several a week.

The three shapes that are not

Different card. The charge went to a card ending 4417; the refund went to 9021. There is no honest version of that at a front desk. Refund without a charge. A refund posted on a folio that never had a payment. Same guest, same clerk, repeatedly. A "friendly" refund pattern: one login, a handful of names, small amounts, over months.

Where it shows on the pack

The check is mechanical: for every refund, find the charge on the same folio and compare the last four digits. No matching charge, or different digits, is the finding — and it is the one finding on this site that you should treat as urgent the first time it appears.

What to ask the desk

What changes when it is watched

DeskWatch matches every refund to its charge each night. A mismatch is sent as a separate line, not folded into the morning summary, with the folio, both card tokens, the time and the login. It is the only pattern we flag as "read this first."