Self-Tipped

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.