Scam alert! Take-out rip-off?
Duner’s owner Bob Caldwell tells us that he got a call today from someone claiming to have found a metal object in a take-out chicken order last night.
“He wouldn’t give out his name or number, just wanted his money back,” says Caldwell. ” After checking our records and finding that we didn’t sell any take-out chicken, we figured it to be a scam.”
Vivace owner Tom “Zipper” Lippman told Caldwell about a similar incident that happened last month, and when he called Hayden Berry, the former Duner’s chef who opened Three-Notch’d Grill in Crozet with his wife, Cathy, Berry told him that he and the owner of Uncle Charlie’s, another Crozet restaurant, got the same call today.
“We’ve reported it to the Albemarle police, but I’m sure this person is probably trying this scam at other places,” says Caldwell. “The phone number he’s dialing from is the UVA hospital. Of course, I thought this might be of interest to my fellow restaurateurs.”
Here’s an idea.. Tell him to come on and get his $ back. Have the cameras rolling and the police waiting. That will fix him! Good luck
you know i’ve actually thought of doing that after getting my money back for an item that was damaged, of course the angel on my shoulder said no, so when i hear about someone doing this sort of thing especially in this day and age, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. at least there isn’t a pandemic of gas siphoning… yet
You never know if it’s the same person but a similar scam has been tried at the Bellair Market and her sister stores recently. It always begins with something metal being found in the chicken salad. Each store asked for him to come in and speak with the store manager or someone at our main office, but he never showed.
and as for gas siphoning - the current rage is the theft of gas credit cards. It only takes one or two fill-ups to cross $100 and few places have cameras outside for ‘pay at the pump’ purchases. You can get your gas cards to have a PIN number to help prevent such problems.
I’m curious…how is this scam supposed to work? Seems like going in to collect the money wouldn’t be very smart. Anybody have and theories?
Dave McNair
Someone posted about similar things happening to some different restaurants on cVillain. I imagine it’s either the same person or a copy cat. What a jerk.