The
Recycled Check Maneuver
In this scam, waiters take a previous order receipt with the same items
requested for a new customer and pass the receipt to the new customers for
payment. As example, a waiter has a previous ticket for two burgers, two salads,
and two ice teas. Another table orders the exact same thing. The waiter only
rings in what they cannot get themselves: the Burgers. The waiter serves the
self service items without ringing them in. The waiter drops the previous check
pocketing the excess cash for the ice teas and salads.
Recommended Aloha system process:
The “Required Category /
Category Count” setting can be enabled to prevent checks from being
closed without appropriate items. If the establishment feels that waiters may be
passing checks with common ordered items such as beverages/salads and passing
them off to multiple guests, the “Category Count” feature in Aloha can be
enabled to prevent checks being closed without such items. Category Count or
Required Category on a check makes the waiter enter an item such as a beverage
or “no beverage” on every check. The waiter would not be able to close a check
without the beverage or “no beverage” item.1
Waiter performance
measures should be set up on the system. Aloha provides the ability
for management to monitor server performance through performance measures.
Performance measures allow for tracking of sales targets and comparisons against
objectives of each measure. You can define up to 99 performance measures. These
measures can be easily viewed on the FOH server sales report or checkout report.
It would be recommended to configure a “Sales Category to Guest” or Sales
Category to Check” performance measure(s) by waiter job code on the Aloha
software. The Sales Category(s) would contain your most routinely ordered or
most popular customer items. This way management can spot check any specific
percentage discrepancies that look to be out of range. If a certain waiter has a
low sales percentage in this performance measure, then corrective action and
monitoring should take place.2
Managers should
routinely visually spot check tables and review corresponding waiter
checks for accurate items, including order time of items. Managers can easily
access any waiter’s check from a FOH terminal and review the check under
Financial/View Tables. The manager can then make sure that appropriate beverages
or any items that the waiter gets are on the actual check. They can also verify
that the items have been rung into the system in an appropriate order time. For
example, the current time is 5:00pm and these beverages have been rung in at
11:00am. If the table was not here all afternoon these items could be suspect.
This waiter should be monitored.3
Guest checks can have a
message for a complimentary item if they’re receipt time and date
does not match the window they have been dining in. Many establishments post
signs such as “If you do not receive a receipt your meal is on us.” This is done
to make sure that cashiers or waiters are ringing in items through the POS
system. The same philosophy could be used on a guest receipt indicating for them
to make sure the time and date of receipt is accurate. This will deter waiters
from tryingto attempt to pass an older or wrongly dated receipt to a new
customer. Guest check messages can be defined in Aloha Events under “Set Guest
Check Message.”4
1
Reference: Chapter 3 in the Aloha TableService Manual for Store
Settings/Category Counts
2
Reference: Chapter 4 in the Aloha QuickService & TableService Manuals for
Performance Measure configuration
3
Reference: Chapter 1 in the Aloha TableService Add-Ons Manager Guide for Viewing
a Tab or Table
4
Reference: Chapter 7 in the Aloha TableService Manual for Events / Set Guest
Check Message
Excerpted from "How to Burn Down the House: The Infamous Waiter and Bartender's
Scam Bible by Two Bourbon Street Waiters" by Peter Francis & R. Chip Deglinkta.
© 2003 Promethian Books

Video
Surveillance Attacks Shrink
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Abacus Video Surveillance is exciting because it
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>> Works Alone
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transactions.
>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
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