Check out this handmade sign posted to the front door of a shuttered Jimmy John’s sandwich chain shop in Missouri last week. See if you can tell from the store owner’s message what happened.
If you guessed that someone in the Jimmy John’s store might have fallen victim to a Business Email Compromise (BEC) or “CEO fraud” scheme — wherein the scammers impersonate company executives to steal money — you’d be in good company.
In fact, that was my initial assumption when a reader in Missouri shared this photo after being turned away from his favorite local sub shop. But a conversation with the store’s owner Steve Saladin brought home the truth that some of the best solutions to fighting fraud are even more low-tech than BEC scams.
Visit any random fast-casual dining establishment and there’s a good chance you’ll see a sign somewhere from the management telling customers their next meal is free if they don’t receive a receipt with their food. While it may not be obvious, such policies are meant to deter employee theft.
The idea is to force employees to finalize all sales and create a transaction that gets logged by the company’s systems. The offer also incentivizes customers to help keep employees honest by reporting when they don’t get a receipt with their food, because employees can often conceal transactions by canceling them before they’re completed. In that scenario, the employee gives the customer their food and any change, and then pockets the rest.
You can probably guess by now that this particular Jimmy John’s franchise — in Sunset Hills, Mo. — was among those that chose not to incentivize its customers to insist upon receiving receipts. Thanks to that oversight, Saladin was forced to close the store last week and fire the husband-and-wife managers for allegedly embezzling nearly $100,000 in cash payments from customers.
Saladin said he began to suspect something was amiss after he agreed to take over the Monday and Tuesday shifts for the couple so they could have two consecutive days off together. He said he noticed that cash receipts at the end of the nights on Mondays and Tuesdays were “substantially larger” than when he wasn’t manning the till, and that this was consistent over several weeks.
Then he had friends proceed through his restaurant’s drive-thru, to see if they received receipts for cash payments.
“One of [the managers] would take an order at the drive-thru, and when they determined the customer was going to pay with cash the other would make the customer’s change for it, but then delete the order before the system could complete it and print a receipt,” Saladin said.
Saladin said his attorneys and local law enforcement are now involved, and he estimates the former employees stole close to $100,000 in cash receipts. That was on top of the $115,000 in salaries he paid in total each year to the two employees. Saladin also has to figure out a way to pay his franchisor a fee for each of the stolen transactions.
Now Saladin sees the wisdom of adding the receipt sign, and says all of his stores will soon carry a sign offering $10 in cash to any customers who report not receiving a receipt with their food.
Many business owners are reluctant to involve the authorities when they discover that a current or former employee has stolen from them. Too often, organizations victimized by employee theft shy away from reporting it because they’re worried that any resulting media coverage of the crime will do more harm than good.
But there are quiet ways to ensure embezzlers get their due. A few years back, I attended a presentation by an investigator with the criminal division of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who suggested that any embezzling victims seeking a discreet law enforcement response should simply contact the IRS.
The agent said the IRS is obligated to investigate all notifications it receives from employers about unreported income, but that embezzling victims often neglect to even notify the agency. That’s a shame, he said, because under U.S. federal law, anyone who willfully attempts to evade or defeat taxes can be charged with a felony, with penalties including up to $100,000 in fines, up to five years in prison, and the costs of prosecution.
A classic employee stealing scheme in bars is to serve smaller drinks. After 5 drinks are served only the equivalent of 4 have been poured. The employee then can serve a 5th one and take the cash in pocket. It is impossible to detect at the register and counting stock. The employer is not the one losing, it is the customer. This is pretty common and the way to avoid is camera system to ensure employees are honest and don’t pocket money that they should not.
Some places combat drink theft like under our over pouring by installing the push button automated pour systems. The bartender rings up 1 shot of tequila then pushes a button that dispenses the exact amount. Mixed drinks are in the system as well. Harder to defraud.
If the police raid your house, you may be in some trouble.
If the IRS raid your house, you are definitely in trouble (tax evasion)
If the USPS raid your house, you are in a *lot* of trouble (mail fraud).
(… and if the Fish and Wildlife Service raid your house, it’s because they know *exactly* what you did with that walrus.)
Ku ku kachu. I am the walrus.
LOL, but, not. You are absolutely right…
Loved that!
Since I worked in retail, I knew that providing a receipt is a fraud deterrent. However, today many customers don’t want a paper receipt. A lot of the places I go if the customer wants a receipt. I presume this would work if the ask is at the end of the transaction, not at the beginning. Thoughts?
I’ve seen that happen where the cust specifically says no receipt. I ALWAYS take mine.
Where I work they have the option of getting their receipt emailed to them instead.
I am very glad you ALL called this to my attention! I am always being asked if I want my receipt and you can bet FROM NOW ON I WILL! I know this doesn’t always mean someone is stealing but then, it COULD mean just that. I would never have thought of this as well as a lot of other people too. Thank you!
Just who can you trust nowadays? I agree these crooks should be purged by the law to the fullest extent, destroying businessess and jobs with their greed and criminal acts. They should be made to spend the rest of their lives repaying at least the amount stolen.
Sounds like you’re talking about corporate executives
Now if only someone would crack down on wage theft from employees, particularly by these franchise-type businesses. I’ll be it’s still hugely disproportionate.
True, employees are always stealing hours by looking at their phones while on the clock, various cigarette breaks throughout the day over and above the required breaks, and by standing around and BSing instead of cleaning when it is slow. They should crack down on that!
Kids, this is Bobb. Bobb is a scab, and should never be trusted. Don’t be like Bobb. If there’s a Bobb at your place of work, avoid them at all costs. If there is a Bobb running your place of work, stop working there! Remember: Never do one iota more work than what you’re being paid for. If you’re unsure, ask yourself this simple question: Will working that much harder benefit me? Or will it benefit the business owner, who is already (statistically speaking) not paying me what my labor is worth as it is?
Unionize your workplace, kids. And make sure the Bobbs in your life know what’s good for them!
Bob might just be a tradition hardworking guy who dislikes slacking. Ever consider other job duties or even taking pride in the work you contribute.
The absolutely laziest employees are union. Remember the old saying 8 for 8, ya right. Union employees many times forget who they work for, its not the union.
I thought the actually did work for the union. The company basically hires the union.
Bullsh generalizations are bulsh, thanks for playing.
If Jeff Benzos “works” for your business, get rid of him the first chance you have. He’s sucking all the life out of your investment and encouraging everyone else to sabotage the very thing that they all willingly and voluntarily sought after for their employment. If you don’t want to work for a company or you’re dissatisfied with any of the policies there, walk away. That Jeff Benzos thinks it’s OK to destroy a small business is just disgusting.
Chill out Bobb. You must be a blast at parties
You need to get some friends.
Sounds like you are wanting to go back pre civil war. I understand completely about, the theft aspects, but, to be critical of employees kicking the bo bo(Bssing) when work is slow, come on brother, we have more in this short life to be critiqued, than that. My opinion only.
Preach!!!!! Talk about the real ones who are rob daily.
But, as a consumer, I deteste receiving paper receipts from fast food entitites. HUGE was of resources and a pain to clear out of the car every month. I love restaurants that will ask you if YOU want a receipt, because my answer is always NO.
Smart owners/franchisers need to find an alternative to inventory/cash control than a bpa-laden paper receipt.
Im not touching those poison laced pieces of paper unless it is a very big purchase that may need to be returned. The time it takes to crumple that receipt & drop it immediately is all it takes to get it in your system. This poison is an unstable female hormone. 2 people got over on him but how many employees has he gotten over on? Paying minimum wage or shorting a break because its busy. Stealing from a mom & pop is wrong but franchises are fair game. Every single thing they do is to finagle more $ from us. Changing placement of items to force us to hunt longer in hopes we’ll see something we didn’t know we needed is stealing time & $ from us. Its sad they got caught. They should have donated some of that $ so karma had they back
But the radiation from the cell phone is no problem?
I prefer digital receipts. I even have a folder specifically for receipts and invoices that have been emailed and texted to me.
I a consumer. I prefer paper receipts. Everything electronically is like cash app, PayPal, crypto, zelle. I don’t understand and don’t want to
Fascinating.
Nit: IYM “discreet”, twice, not “discrete”.
Both spellings work
It worked on Al Capone.
Brenda Malone, when you get food poisoning, you will find yourself searching through the pile of trash you apparently carry in your car looking for that cash receipt to the restaurant that sold you the compromised food. I *ALWAYS* get a receipt for any food for this reason. Keep it for a day or so, till the food has been “moved on”, then recycle the paper receipt.
Did you know over 90% of food poisoning cases don’t even get reported and that same percentage is people who get food poisoning at home?
if they aren’t reported how do you get the 90%?
Not sure I’m following. Why would it matter if the customer’s got receipts or not? You think customers don’t lose those things 5 minutes after they get them?
It’s to force the employee to complete the transaction so there is a record of it. The customer incentive is the cash for calling them out if they don’t. Doesn’t matter what happens to the receipt afterwards.
because if the customer gets a receipt it means the order was logged in the system and if an employee pocketed the cash it will be discovered that day when the cash vs orders don’t add up.
There is assumption that receipt is printed so transaction is in the system and at the end of the day money in the system should be equal with cash so rhe owner can check if everything is ok.
Since other readers were similarly confused, I added a couple of sentences to the top of the story to explain more about how the fraud works.
This doesn’t audit the missing purchase: it relies on human nature. Picture the scheme WITHOUT this rule in place: 100 customers receive food; 95 receive receipts; revenue from the five “lost” receipts is embezzled. No one complains; tracing the goods may be difficult; no audit trail exists. However, WITH this rule in place: 100 customers receive rood; 95 receive receipts; among the other five, at LEAST one will say “Whoa! I want my reward!” If that customer engages an honest employee for a refund or free food, records of that unexplained loss (especially over time) may lead to questions like, “Why did one location have to refund so many items last month? Why is this the only place that doesn’t issue 100% of its receipts?” True, the embezzler may have a plan to satisfy such customers out of their ill-gotten gains — or a story to cover it up — but those questions may be their undoing.
It’s not about the customer keeping the receipt. The receipt represents a completed transaction showing in the vendor’s system as an audit trail.
The bigger question to my mind is who designs an order placement system that allows a manager to “delete” a transaction vs voiding the transaction? Although I suppose if you’re quick enough and just delete each individual item after you’ve memorized the order so you can hand out the food, it’s effectively deleting the order.
they don’t care that the customer is in possession of the receipt. they care that transaction has been accounted for in the register. smh
My goodness, finally a voice of reason. Thank you.
“Front door”? That looks like the drive thru, nothing like the Front Door.
If somebody stole $5000 from me, and by reporting that to the IRS I would *obligate* the federal government to investigate them, presumably prosecute them, leave them with a felony record and nonzero prison time, and cost them the cost of prosecution (probably tens of thousands of dollars) plus maybe a fine (OK, probably not $100,000 in a $5,000 case)… then I wouldn’t feel very good about telling the IRS. Not unless there was a lot of other, worse, wrongdoing on their part.
I’d think long and hard before doing it even for $100,000. And I sure as hell don’t think I’d want to do it if I couldn’t see my way clear to putting my name behind my actions. Not just “Sok Puppette”, either.
Because that sort of thing, particularly the prison time and PARTICULARLY the way they get informally treated after that time is over, is life destroying, and life destruction is a disproportionate penalty.
The extreme penalties everybody demands for basically every crime, and the way everybody treats offenders afterwords, actively discourage reporting by anybody who has any sense of proportion.
The harsh penalties are meant to act as a deterrent. Most criminals think they will be the ONE that gets away with it.
Your compassion is charming.
Perhaps the best way to start recompense would be to lay out the options… you pay me back and we are done. You don’t pay me back I go to the IRS and you will have life altering changing happening. If they are not brought to justice they will find some place else to pull their scam.
But at that point, when you accept value to not report a felony, you are yourself guilty of misprision at least and accessory or extortion at worst.
If they in fact believe that they will get away with it, then it doesn’t matter what the penalty is, since they don’t believe the penalty will be applied to them in the first place.
Would you like to try again with your deterrence argument?
So you don’t understand deterrence? This restaurant owner invested probably at least a million dollars on putting a store together, hiring and training employees, stocking the store, paying the utilities and many other costs, so what about their destroyed lives? What about the employees who won’t get a raise, or suppliers that might have to wait for payment, and all that destruction? You are more concerned about the CRIMINAL and their poor wounded selves, who took 100k and invested nothing and wrecked an honest persons live. I guess that you must be a criminal yourself to think like that.
Wait – you think Jimmy John’s gives raises?
How about “don’t steal” or don’t become an offender if you are worried about the system disproportionately being mean to you? What do you think happens if you fail to report someone who committed a crime because you didn’t want them to be unjustly served justice? Do you think they just go “phweww, I totally lucked out and now I’m changing my ways?” No, you just let them get away with it and move on to their next victims. Victims to crimes that you could have prevented from happening. Ask Peter Parker’s uncle how that worked out for him (/s)
I prefer to get my information from reality rather than comic books.
Oh screw that. That level theft could cost them their business and both people knowingly and willingly stole the money KNOWING the consequences. They didn’t care at the time, so why should I care after the fact. Your attitude, which seems to be prevalent in the dem party, is why we have violent felons running the streets with 5 or 6 felony convictions in their back pocket. “Jail is mean” is not a valid reason to keep criminals out of it. It’s supposed to be mean.
How about we go after these crooked ass politicians who allow these corporations to steal from people, kill lots of people & hide it for decades. Minimum wage is stealing people’s lives. The way companies pay wages period is theft. Forced OT is theft of time. Literally take majority of your life but only pay for half. Not cool. Stealing is stealing the only way you can judge is if you yourself has never done a single thing wrong. Corporations are not people & until they start paying fair wages let them get what they deserve. Ceo’s make millions while people who actually do the real work make sh!t. Then you people jump on people that take what they probably deserve. Smh this world. Stockholm syndrome. Folks taking up for they repressors
The criminality of others is no justification to condone criminal behavior.
Whataboutism is a dumb argument.
Being perfectly innocent is not the criteria to judging others.
A jury will decide, and if you’re skimming from your employer, a jury is not going to buy your argument that “politicians and corporations are greedy”.
I see the opposite. The pandering to criminal behavior is creating more ‘bad people’ than ever before.
Current punishment is far to lenient. Especially for large financial crimes. The proof is that the crime rate continues to grow.
Now if people lost a finger or more every time they stole, there would be “much” less crime.
The fact that if someone has a company that commits fraud/steals that they are 99% less likely to end up in jail and the ‘company’ can pay a fine/bribe to save their butt from personal responsibility – and that encourages lower level crime – because nobody in power cares about justice, just $.
Our local Chick-fil-A had to fire a large number of employees because they were keeping the receipts that the customers didn’t want and using the codes to get free sandwiches and drinks for themselves and their friends. Do this over any length of time and you’ll end up with quite a large amount of merchandise taken. They were expecting x% of receipts to be redeemed and instead it moved closer to 100%.
That’s a bit more of a grey line, compared to pocketing cash. The company may “expect” x% of coupons to be redeemed, but if they don’t have any mechanism in place to ensure that… they they are probably to blame.
Kinda like Netflix “losing money” because of account sharing. They can argue that those friends and family members would have paid full price themselves if they could not share, but they cannot guarantee that lost revenue.
Do they even specify that employees are prohibited from using these coupons? Employees are allowed to also be customers.
If a minimum wage employee at the drive thru were to ask every customer if they could keep the free sandwich code for themselves, how many customers would say “sure”? At that point, what’s the difference between a kind stranger and a friend.
It sounds like Chick-fil-A should not be expecting a simple receipt code to be as good as cash. They should either have “minimum purchase necessary”, like most places… or require a registration where you go online, enter the receipt code, confirm a phone number, and receive at most 1 voucher code per person.
It matters because, as long as a receipt was printed, the transaction went thru the system.
I had a similar experience, but with dining in guests. The manager would delete the check after the server cashed out at the end of their shift. The Miami-Dade police sent in undercover officers at my request and we caught the manager. Turns out the the manager had done the same thing at another restaurant in the past and he was stealing from us to pay off the last restaurant. It really hit home the need to do pre-hire background checks on managers.
So Puppette makes no sense. Call the IRS and let those crooks get their due
Im sorry for the owner. It’s a sad comment on our society that people are so greedy and entitled they think it’s ok to steal.
People think it’s OK to steal. First, I am proud to be a US citizen, but thievery has been going on for hundreds of years in this country, and I’m not sanctioning a thief at all, and I could go on and explain deeper what I mean, but I only have one life and it will take many more lives, to explain. But simply, poverty is a problem that everyone doesn’t experience, and sometimes we don’t know what makes a person steal, but when a person in authority and power steal, they should be executed to the fullest extent of the law. But, I know theft is a crime, but so is taking someone’s right to vote, claiming someone’s land, and then saying “I discovered it”, c’mon America.
I worked at a place about 17 years ago that did something similar. Thing is though, the receipts were given, the managers then went into the system and refunded the orders, using whatever excuse and pocketed the money.
Asking for a receipt isn’t enough. You have to actually *read* it! I was riding Amtrak once and made my way to the “cafe” to get a cup of coffee. The register printed a receipt, the attendant seized it with annoyance and crumpled it up and threw it away while handing me the coffee and remarking that I could get a free refill. Note that free refills are *not* typical of Amtrak. I said, may I have a receipt? He said, oops I just threw it away. I said, You can print a duplicate. He said All right and the register obediently printed a duplicate. Everything was in its place… except at the bottom it said VOID. So his scheme was to cancel the order, fill the order, and I guess explain excess usage of raw material by lamely saying he gave free refills? But I do not know how he explained the missing cups. Maybe he found a way to obtain cups off the books.
A reprint may also say void though.
The sign concerning a reward for not receiving a receipt should also have a specific email or phone number to report to, not just the onsite manager, who, in this case, is the perpetrator.
You heard it from Brian first: A useful tip from the IRS on how it can actually help. It’s possible that there are cyber crime cases where involving the IRS would also be a good idea, because people who have aided in a hack will probably not pay taxes on whatever they got for their efforts.
I don’t really trust the authors claim here. As a prior fast food manager I know a manager can complete a transaction keep the store receipt and enter it as a void mistake. I reported a manager who did this when she called me up and offered to work at my store for free off the clock. Only When I told the owner did he check and find out that voids on that manager shift were crazy high.
I don’t really trust an anonymous comment. The author, I do trust.
A voided receipt is still a paper trail that makes it really hard to commit fraud long term. Like you said, as soon as someone does a quick check… the whole scheme is discovered. Not only discovered, but a full record of the stolen money.
Cancelled transactions, or ones never entered into the register, can apparently go undetected for years. It took more than just a quick check, it required several weeks of trend analysis by comparing typical Monday/Tuesday revenue and by the owner working those days himself.
Way too few business owners pay for professional auditing at least every three years, with the additional caution of not using the same auditor repeatedly. Using accountants who have long experience in the kind of business which needs the auditing is worth the cost, because they bring experience well beyond what most business owners have. It is like restaurateurs making sure that they call in professional smoke-hood cleaners twice a year. Those who don’t are the ones who get destructive grease fires, which can damage nor only the restaurant, but also the building, which may house also other businesses. Prevention is cheaper than cure.
I’ve known of businesses put out of business because of the cheating. During my early years, I worked in retail and restaurant work. At both places, theft was detected, but they didn’t do anything about it. But this was over 40 years ago. Heck, I’ve never even had to take a drug test.
I love the IRS option in this scenario. Double penalty!
Isn’t this why most cash registers don’t open the drawer until the sale is final?
“Do you want your receipt printed or emailed?:” If customer says neither. then just print it and say it’s store policy.
Don’t forget! The IRS has whistleblowing rewards too!
Although this does only kick in after a couple million in tax, you can get up to 30% of whatever money the IRS collects.
https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/whistleblower-office-at-a-glance
now I know why camera systems that integrate with the cash register are so popular.
@Bobb…
More like employers are stealing labor by severely under-paying their employees.
“Stealing” a few minutes back by chatting, looking at their phones, or taking another smoke break is merely restoring a little balance to the equation… And barely even that.
But that’s what happens when you tell your workers you think they’re worth the bare minimum, or just barely above it — You get bare minimum effort in return.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
My uncle was a private detective specializing in this sort of thing back in the 70s. I worked for him during college holidays. His clients were jewelry stores, electrical parts suppliers, lots of places that had poor inventory control. It was a fun job – he gave me a wad of cash and my girlfriend and I would go to the jewelry store, pick out stuff, and pay exact change. At the end of the week, we would compare the cash register receipts to any that I got (or didn’t get). Too bad I had to give all the jewelry back!