Burger Waitress Helped Herself To Thousands In Fraudulent Tips

There's an element of trust involved with handing over your signed receipt to your server at a restaurant. What's to stop an unscrupulous person from adding a "1" in front of that $12 tip? Other than easily getting caught, of course.

Apparently that was not enough to stop a waitress at Juicy Lucy's Burger Bar And Grill in Asheville, North Carolina. The Asheville Citizen Times reports that the woman wasn't using customers' cards, though, which is probably why her scheme was able to go on for so long. Police suspect that using over a dozen different pre-paid Visa cards, she added a variety of huge tips for herself, ranging from "ranging from $59.16 to $539.58," with all of them except for the $59.16 tip totaling over a hundred dollars. Asheville Police Department spokeswoman Christina Hallingse told the Citizen Times that investigators believe the woman was "using prepaid Visa cards that she was purchasing with her own money and putting extravagant tips on," knowing that the cards did not have enough money on them to cover the tips.

While a patron would (hopefully) likely spot the extra hundred or so they didn't spend at a bar and grill, apparently the restaurant's managers were slower to catch on. Now the woman faces "14 felony counts of obtaining property under false pretense after Asheville police say she obtained $3,734.28" through the fraudulent tips. The Citizen Times notes that the restaurant could not be reached to ascertain the woman's employment status, but her arrest report listed her as "an unemployed service industry worker." Even though she wasn't using customer cards, it's a good reminder: Check those receipts, everybody.

The good news if you're in Asheville: Juicy Lucy's is hiring for servers.