Shorted Change: How do you handle it?

Image: Mike at the pub.

Over the weekend my brother and I visited our favorite local pub to sing some karaoke and visit with some friends.

During the course of the evening, we had an awkward situation with our server: we gave her a twenty dollar bill and she brought back change for a ten.

My brother and I politely told her that I gave her a twenty, to which she swore we gave her a ten. We had just started drinking, so there was no lapse in judgment. I explained to her that I had all twenties and a ten when we walked in. I used the ten to pay for a pitcher of beer when we first got there, so there was no way I could have given her anything but a twenty when we paid the second time. I even reminded her that when I paid earlier with the ten, she handed me back the three dollars in change, of which I gave her back two of it as a tip.

Nobody was yelling, nobody was trying to be a jerk about it. It was pretty busy that night, and it was an understandable mistake. She could have gotten a manager, if she felt we were wrong. Instead, she walked up to the bar, grabbed ten dollars, came back to the table and threw the ten dollar bill on our table in disgust and walked away.

From that point forward she didn't so much as make eye contact with us. That didn't make us feel comfortable about staying there, that's for sure. So we finished up our beer and went to another pub.

Have you ever faced a dispute over being shorted change, where the person you gave the money to claims you gave them a smaller bill than what you actually did? What happened and how did it get resolved?