My husband and I went out to eat at a wings restaurant. We had a great meal, paid, and left. My husband has a tendency to forget things, so I always go through the same spiel anytime we go anywhere. Do you have your phone? Keys? Wallet? Sure enough, he had left his wallet at the restaurant.

We went back and they brought it out to us from lost and found. My husband looked inside to see if everything was there, and there was a $100 bill missing. The week prior was his birthday, and his coworker/mentor gave him $100 as a gift. My husband had been saving it to buy a nice jacket, which we were going shopping for later that day, so I know for sure the money was in the wallet.

When we realized that the money was gone, we asked for a manager. We pointed out the waitress, who denied taking it. We asked to see the cameras, but the manager said in order for us to watch them we had to file a police report, but he himself watched the video and said he saw no one open the wallet. I don’t know if he really watched the video, though, because he didn’t seem to be gone long enough. At this point, we were at a loss of what to do, and the manager was acting as if we were lying and asked us to leave.

We did call the police, but it was going to be a lot of red tape to get them involved, and my husband was so angry he just said forget it. I think the waitress took the wallet away from the cameras, anyway, to take the money.

The very next morning, I got a call from our bank asking if we had tried to purchase a really expensive gaming system online. The charge had occurred the night before and was declined. No, it was not us; neither of us plays video games. We had to cancel our card and get a new one issued, and I am positive that the waitress must have written down the card info from my husband’s wallet. After reading stories on NotAlwaysRight, I can totally see how the manager thought we were trying to scam them. But sometimes, the customers aren’t lying.

(I work at an opticians with my mum, who’s the manager. In the middle of the shop is a large rack of sunglasses. The dummy lenses in the frames are tinted like sunglasses for people to try on, but there’s a price sticker on each of them, as well as the words, “Suitable for prescription lenses,” embossed in white font. Because of the embossing, they’re not normally a target for thieves because you can’t wear them with the text there… or so we thought. It’s the middle of the day and the store is quite busy; a coworker is stood in front of the rack acting as a greeter when a heavily pregnant woman comes in.)

Coworker: “Good morning! Is there anything I can help you with today?”

Customer: “Yes. I was wondering if you could tell me about these glasses…”

(She leads him to a different display only a few feet away. There are about five others of us on the shop floor, mostly busy with people, and two more of us are approached by customers almost immediately after my coworker. The man who speaks to me is very skinny and looks kind of nervous.)

Customer: “Hey, yeah, I’m looking for my mum’s glasses; her name’s [Woman’s Full Name].”

Me: “Um, I can’t see any ready to collect for a Ms. [Last Name].”

Customer: “It might be under [Different Last Name].”

Me: *still rummaging in drawers* “I can’t see anything for a Ms. [Different Last Name], either. Hang on, let me check the order list. Can I have her date of birth?”

Customer: “Actually, don’t worry. I’ll just leave it.”

Me: “I’m sure I can find them, just—“

(With that he turns and hurries out, and it’s right then I realise the entire rack of about fifty pairs of sunglasses has been emptied. It takes a few seconds for me to link the theft with a man who has been talking to me the entire time, and I realise he was a distraction. I run out of the shop but it’s too late. When we check the CCTV, there are four people clearly involved. They came in within a few minutes of each other, three made beelines for member of staff, and the other waited briefly before emptying the display into a backpack before they all left at almost the same time. It was amazingly well coordinated, and we still don’t know why they’d want sunglasses with white writing in the way of your vision. We report it to the police and take their photos from the CCTV, and we think that’s all we can do, until a few weeks later when my mum and I are at a car-boot sale.)

Mum: *whispering* “Do you see those?”

Me: “The sunglasses? Yeah, why?”

Mum: “They’re from the shop.”

Me: “They’re just black frame sunglasses, Mum; they all look the same.”

Mum: *to the people at the stall* “Oh! Look at these! How lovely! Let me just try them on!”

(She makes a big pantomime out of trying on these sunglasses and really looking at them.)

Mum: “I’ll think about it.”

Me: *as we move away* “So, they weren’t ours?”

Mum: “No, they are. I’m calling the police.”

(I still didn’t really believe her because there were only a few pairs out and they’re mostly black and brown, generic-looking sunglasses, but when the police turned up they found dozens more pairs in their car. When they had a closer look, they found that the white lettering had been carefully filed off of each pair. They were arrested and eventually found guilty of the theft, though they were only fined. What most surprised me was that they’d gone to all that effort to steal and file down the sunglasses only to end up selling them for £5 each at a car-boot sale!)

(I work as an x-ray tech. While at home, I get a call that there’s a teenager with a gunshot wound being rushed to the hospital, and I need to beat the ambulance there so I can help prep him for surgery by x-raying to see where the bullets are lodged. I hang up the phone, grab my stuff, and get in my car. I don’t have a light or siren, so I can’t just blast through intersections, but I am legally allowed to ignore posted speed limits, so long as I don’t cause an accident. There’s one stretch of road where the speed limit drops by ten miles per hour for a single block; it’s clearly a speed trap, as there’s nothing to differentiate the block from the rest of the street. And that day, there happens to be a cop hiding out at the speed trap, who sees me rush by and immediately flips on his lights and siren and pulls out behind me. I see the cop and groan, but I don’t stop, as I don’t have the time for this. Instead, I continue all the way to the hospital, pull right up to the ER doors, and run inside, throwing my keys and wallet to the receptionist.)

Me: “I’ve got a cop on my tail! Tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I’m out of surgery! Or he can just leave the ticket with you!”

Receptionist: “The ambulance just pulled into the bay. GO! I’ll handle the cop.”

Me: “Registration is in the glove box!”

(I run off to do my work, but I am told about the following when I come back to pick up my wallet and keys later.)

Cop: *comes running inside* “Where did she go?! Does she honestly think hiding in a hospital means I won’t arrest her for failing to pull over?”

Receptionist: “Sir? Sir! The woman you’re looking was just called into surgery. But she left me her wallet so I could help you sort this out.”

Cop: “Surgery? She didn’t look injured to me!”

Receptionist: “No, sir. She’s our x-ray tech. We just had a boy brought it with gunshot wounds, and she was called in to prep him for surgery.”

Cop: “A kid?”

Receptionist: “Yes, sir. And it’s a good thing she got here so fast, because his ambulance is already here, and the surgeon can’t start to operate until he knows where the bullets are. He needs an x-ray to guide him.”

Cop: *deflates* “Oh.” *turns and starts to walk out*

Receptionist: “Don’t you need to see her license and registration?”

Cop: “I’m not giving her a ticket for saving a kid’s life! Just tell her to be careful.”

(I’m working third shift in the control room at a police department, and it’s currently one in the morning. I have my main screen fixed on my sergeant, who is outside in the dimly-lit parking lot taking a smoke break. The parking lot is completely empty except for the cars belonging to the jail staff. She’s about to come back in when two teenage girls walk across the parking lot and ask her something. The sergeant shakes her head but leads them towards the main lobby door. They take a seat as the sergeant radios me.)

Sergeant: “[My Name], call Communications and have them dispatch [Patrol Sergeant] here. Those juveniles he’s been searching for have shown up.”

(I see the girls look at each other uneasily on the camera as the sergeant takes a seat between them and the door.)

Me: “Roger that.”

(I make the call, and not a minute later I see two patrol cars come flying into the parking lot. One officer jumps out of his car before it’s even parked. I turn on a speaker in the lobby just in time to hear:)

Patrol Sergeant: “Where have you two been? And who have you been with?”

(The girls pretend to ignore him before the other deputy gets in their face.)

Deputy: “HE ASKED WHERE THE H*** HAVE YOU TWO BEEN? DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED YOUR PARENTS ARE? WHAT THE H*** WERE YOU THINKING?”

(Two more cars come flying into the parking lot, and an older couple, a young man, and a middle-aged woman come storming into the lobby. The sergeant takes that as her cue and comes back into the jail, shaking her head.)

Sergeant: “Stupid idiots. What the h*** were they thinking?”

Me: “Is everything okay, Sergeant?”

Sergeant: “Those two were the fifteen-year-olds that the deputies have been looking for all night. They decided to skip school but realized they missed their ride back afterward.”

Me: “But the high school dismisses at three pm! What were they doing? Just wandering around for the last ten hours?”

Sergeant: “I don’t know. What’s it looking like out there?”

(I look at the camera just in time to see the mother of [Girl #1] throw a book bag across the lobby while the other woman and the father are shouting and waving around a cell phone. The young man is turning red, and he yells at the girls before walking back outside. Meanwhile, the deputies are standing back shaking their heads.)

Me: “I think there is more to the story, Sergeant. The families look pissed off right now.”

(The next morning we got the full story from the deputies. The girls had skipped school to spend the day fooling around with their secret twenty-some-year-old boyfriends in the next county over. The plan had been for them to get back in time to catch the bus so no would know they were gone. Unfortunately, [Girl #1]’s mother had gone to pick her up early, and when they found out she had never shown up to school, they asked about [Girl #2], who is their neighbor. That’s when they realized that BOTH of them had not shown up for school at all and were reported missing. The young man was [Girl #2] brother, who had driven up from South Carolina to help their mom look for her, during his finals week, no less. The girls did end up missing their buses back, but it was because their boyfriends got them back late. Instead of owning up to it, they tried to find someone who could give them a ride and eventually gave up. After wandering around for hours, they saw the sergeant smoking in the parking lot and decided it was time to ask for help. When the parents arrived, everyone was already stressed out and pissed off. That’s when [Girl #1]’s mother — who is very conservative — saw hickeys on her daughter, and she lost it, throwing her book bag across the lobby. The dad was screaming because [Girl #2]’s mom had unlocked her daughter’s phone and found explicit photos of them with their boyfriends. The brother, realizing he missed an important final because of his sister’s booty call, snapped and walked out before he hit her. Last I heard, the boyfriends had been criminally charged and one of the girls had been sent to a private school.)

(I work at a local Chinese restaurant in my town. It’s still summertime, so kids are out all day and, depending on the age, at night, too. Two kids, fifteen or so years old, come in and order two dinner combos, a bag of four chicken wings, and two drinks all for themselves. I tell them their total and they hand me a card. I slide the card through our machine and hand them a pen, and the receipt to sign. The kid with the card looks at me confused.)

Me: “You have to sign it.”

Kid #1: “Oh, okay.” *signs it on the line, then tries to take it*

Me: “I need that back, sorry.”

(He hands it back to me and then talks with his friend. I look at the name on the receipt and begin getting suspicious. Is it their card or a relative of theirs? After settling the order, he asks me if I would know how much was left on the card, like a gift card.)

Me: “No, I wouldn’t have that information because it’s not a gift card, and even if it was, my machine doesn’t tell us how much was left on it.”

Kid #1: “Oh, okay.” *pauses* “Can I get cash back?”

Me: “No, sorry, we don’t offer that.”

(I know that the business next to mine has an ATM they could use, but I don’t say anything. I walk to the kitchen where my boss is packing food for deliveries and takeouts, and I tell her I think the kids stole the card and fill her in on the questions they had asked. My boss goes to the front.)

Boss: “Hi. You guys wanted to know if you can get cash back right?”

Kid #1: “Yes, we did.”

Boss: “Okay, can I see the card for a second?”

(My boss pretends to be searching for an option in our machine for cash back but is actually looking at the name on the card.)

Boss: “Is this your dad’s card?”

Kid #2: “Yeah, it’s his dad’s card. He let us come and get food.”

Boss: “Okay, it looks like we can’t give you cash back. Sorry.”

Kid #1: “It’s okay. Thank you.”

(My boss opens up our cash drawer and writes on the receipt that it was the son that bought food, just in case. Her husband brings up their food and I ask them if they want sauces and forks. I give them what they want and they leave.)

Me: “I just wasn’t sure, and I know that you know the people around here better than I do so I figured I’d tell you. [Cardholder] didn’t seem like it would be them or anyone related to them.”

Boss: “It’s okay. I understand.”

(The next day, when I got to work, my boss told me that about a half an hour before I got there, the cardholder came in informing them that his card had, in fact, been stolen and the two kids had bought about $1100 worth of stuff on two separate websites other than our store. The police knew who the kids were after looking at our video cameras and ended up arresting them.)