Device puts check on chargebacks

PayMyTab lets restaurant diners pay at their tables

FORT LAUDERDALE — One of the biggest problems for restaurants these days is chargebacks, or getting stuck with the bill when a customer disputes it.

If the transaction is not done securely — meaning that the embedded security chip card is “swiped” or run through the machine, instead of “dipped” — the credit card processor could chargeback the bill to the restaurant.

But PayMyTab, a tablet developed by South Florida technology innovator Tom Holmes, aims to solve that problem, and local restaurateurs say it’s the best solution to come along in some time. That’s because PayMyTab is an at-table payment system that prevents a chip card from being swiped like a traditional magnetic-stripe card.

Processing the chip card at the table also protects the customer because the server doesn’t disappear with the credit card to run it through a card processing machine, Holmes said.

Tim Petrillo, co-founder of The Restaurant People in Fort Lauderdale, uses PayMyTab at his Boatyard restaurant, and the tool will soon be introduced at his other Fort Lauderdale-area restaurants, including YOLO, S3 and Tarpon Bend Food & Tackle.

PayMyTab “came along and quickly solved a significant issue for the restaurant business,” Petrillo said, adding that his company has gotten stuck with the tab for a customer’s bill more than he’d like to admit.

Frank Zaffere, business partner with Paul Flanigan in the Quarterdeck restaurants and a new Fort Lauderdale restaurant, Good Spirits, said most systems still require the server to take a chip credit card away from the customer to process it on a special chip mach-