u/kittypizzaparty

Hey yall, I need to come on here and rant about this and ask a question because it’s absolutely insane to me and I need to hear some fellow restaurant workers’ opinions about this.(sorry in advance for the long post)

Here’s a quick backstory: I served a table of 2 the other day- they were a couple and are fairly young(20s-30s). They each got 2 mixed drinks, they got an appetizer and they each got an entree and they got a dessert.(dessert was free because it was the woman’s birthday) They were kind and patient with me so I didn’t think much of our encounter. Their bill came out to $92- after they left I noticed that they stiffed me. Obviously I was annoyed to get a $0 tip on a nearly $100 bill but shit happens and I went along with the rest of my night.

Ok now here’s the situation: the next morning(yesterday) my manager received a call from the woman and she said the charge on her account doesn’t reflect the amount on their receipt. She claimed I maliciously added my own tip. My manager asked her “ok how much was the tip supposed to be so I can look it up in her paperwork?” And she responded with “we didn’t tip anything… me and my husband are struggling financially and we can barely even afford to survive right now. The only reason we went out to eat is because it’s my birthday and my husband wanted to surprise me with a nice meal.”

My manager looked and found what happened. I mixed their receipt up with a different one when I was submitting my tips at the end of the night. Their receipt was under A20 and I mixed it up with receipt A21. So check A21 had a $5 tip but I inserted a $0 tip in our system and vise versa. My manager explained exactly what happened to her, apologized for the trouble and ensured her it was an honest mistake. And after hearing her sad story, my manager not only refunded the $5 difference, he refunded their entire $92 bill!($97 total refund)

The woman was pleased with the outcome and that was the last we heard from them until about 30 minutes later when a police officer walks into our restaurant looking for me. The police officer said the woman called 911(not the non-emergency line) to report that I was committing fraud/theft so she was looking to press charges against me and get me fired.

Although I know I had no ill intent, I was(still am) extremely scared and nervous because I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. I let the cop log into our system under my number and he went through all of my tips/checks. My manager also showed him the 2 checks that I mixed up and explained his conversation with the woman earlier and told him that she got a full refund. The cop thankfully was very understanding and said that he can clearly see where the mistake was made and that he didn’t have enough evidence to press charges against me. He said she can technically still try to peruse a civil case but he assured me that I’m in the clear as far as his investigation is concerned.

I am in utter disbelief at the moment and I’m still worried that she’s going to make my life a lot harder in the future. I’m worried she’s going to leave a review saying I’m a thief or something. I already had a talk with the owners about it and they weren’t even worried about it because I’ve been with their company for over 10 years now and I’ve never even been written up before. I just can’t believe she went that far especially after getting a full refund!

I am curious if anyone knows if she’s actually able to build a legal case against me for this? And what would that look like? I’m in Utah. I’m not sure what her other options would be but I’d like to know so I can be prepared if she goes through with anything else. Thank you guys in advance and sorry for the long post!

Also.. what do yall think? Has anyone had something similar happen before? I’d love to hear your thoughts/opinions!

I will keep updated if anything new happens 🤞🏽