A charge starting with TST* on your statement

TST* means you paid a restaurant, cafe, bar or bakery that takes cards through Toast, a restaurant payment system. The name after TST* is the place you paid. Toast says refunds come from the restaurant, not from Toast.¹⁴

What it looks like on a real statement

The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards, with the merchant name as the bank received it. When we counted on 28 September 2026 it had 15,974 lines starting TST*, under 5,397 different names, from July 2017 to August 2026. 14,601 of them are filed as restaurants and 908 as bars.⁶ The count rises every year from 2021 to 2025, from 338 to 3,852.

Most lines, 11,091, have a space after the star (TST* PILOT HOUSE); the rest do not (TST*SURF BAGEL LEWES). Nearly a third, 4,990, are exactly 25 characters long and stop in the middle of a word. Many restaurants put the branch after a dash, and that is the part that gets cut:⁶

So search for the first word or two after TST*, not the whole line, and do not expect the town to be there.

Why it can show up twice, or for a different amount

Toast tells restaurants that when a guest reports a double charge, a common cause is a hold and a final charge showing side by side: banks place an authorisation hold when the card is used, and an added tip can cause a second temporary authorisation.² The hold should drop off on its own. Toast has published three different estimates of how long that takes:

• "typically within 1-5 business days", in its article for restaurants about duplicate charges;²
• "typically 24-48 hours after authorization", in its billing questions for restaurants;³
• "generally ... within 7 business days", in its help centre for guests, for a card that was declined at the end of an online order.⁵

All three depend on your bank, as Toast says. If a second TST* line with the same name is still there after seven business days, treat it as a real second charge.

How to find what it was

1. Think about food and drink on or just before that date A sit-down meal, a coffee, a bar tab, a bakery, an online pickup or delivery order, a reservation deposit. The name may be a chain with the branch cut off, or a restaurant inside a hotel, airport or stadium.
2. Search the first words with “restaurant” Put the first one or two words after TST* into a search engine with the word restaurant and the towns you were in. Nothing after a dash is reliable.
3. Search your email and texts for a receipt Online orders and many in-person payments send a receipt. Search for the restaurant name and for the exact amount (for example 33.77).
4. Ask the restaurant, not Toast, for a refund or a cancellation Toast’s help centre for guests says: "Please contact the restaurant directly to request a refund," and that the restaurant "is the only party that can cancel an order once it's been placed".⁴⁷ For a reservation deposit it says it is "unable to process refunds on their behalf".⁸ A restaurant using Toast can look your payment up by the last four digits of your card and refund it.² Ask in writing if you can, and keep the reply.
5. If the restaurant has closed, Toast says it will try For an order you went to collect from a closed restaurant, Toast says to contact the restaurant when it reopens, and if you cannot reach it, "we will try to contact the restaurant on your behalf".⁹
6. If you cannot place it, or never ate there, go to your bank Bring the statement line exactly as printed, the date and the amount, and what you already tried. Ask your bank what its deadline is for disputing a charge. It depends on the bank, the card network and the reason, and missing it can end your options.

Is this fraud?

Usually not. In Delaware’s data, almost all TST* lines are filed as restaurants or bars; most of the rest are fast food and bakeries.⁶ A line you do not recognise is most often a place whose name was cut short. Two lines from the same place within a few days are most often a hold and a final charge.

But a TST* prefix does not make a charge genuine. If you have been through the steps above and still cannot place it, and especially if you were nowhere near a restaurant with that name, treat it as unauthorized: call your bank, ask for a new card, and dispute it.

Why this page is on a site about held money

Restaurants are paid by a processor too, and sometimes processors hold that money back. The incident record collects what businesses report about it. If your line starts SQ *, that one is Square, which many cafes also use; if it starts WPY*, it went through WePay. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. Toast Support, "Understand Toast Charge Codes on Bank Statements", last updated 17 September 2026, charge codes reference table. support.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
2. Toast Support, "Get Help: Duplicate Charges on Guest Credit Card", last updated 16 September 2026. support.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
3. Toast Support, "Toast Credit Card Processing and Billing FAQ", "Why does a guest’s payment show as pending for more than a day?". support.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
4. Toast Guest Support, "How do I get a refund if there was an issue with my order?", 3 November 2025. guesthelp.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
5. Toast Guest Support, "Why was my card charged when my order wasn’t placed?", 14 April 2026. guesthelp.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
6. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt" and "cat_descr". Lines starting TST. Queried and counted on 28 September 2026.
7. Toast Guest Support, "How do I cancel my order?", 3 November 2025. guesthelp.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
8. Toast Guest Support, "Can I get a refund for my deposit?", 16 June 2025. guesthelp.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.
9. Toast Guest Support, "The restaurant was closed when I went to pickup my order. What should I do?", 3 November 2025. guesthelp.toasttab.com. Read on 28 September 2026.