“We are going to expose you”: Dine-and-dasher who paid with $1000 bill gets shamed into returning with real money
A Missouri restaurant successfully tracked down the money owed to them after shaming a dine-and-dasher who left them a $1,000 bill. The local man, who fled in his luxury car, returned to the scene of the crime after the establishment posted his face on their Facebook account.
He paid his bill with real cash this time and even tipped the staff.
When shaming works
Dine-and-dashers are a nuisance that every restaurant must endure, but Michael’s Bar and Grill in Manchester has seen more than its fair share in recent months. Recently, one man left a fake $1,000 bill that looked a lot like a real $100 bill for a burger and multiple sides, then sped off in his Lexus when the server went to retrieve his change.
This stung both because restaurants operate on thin profit margins and because servers rely on tips to make ends meet. Frustrated, the company decided to take stills from their security footage and post them on Facebook.
"We have cameras everywhere," Kristina Moriarty told news outlet First Alert 4. "We have license plate readers, we have facial recognition that we had to invest in because unfortunately, these things keep happening to small businesses around here."
The investment seems worth it, as the dine-and-dasher returned to the restaurant in shame after the post went live. He reportedly paid his bill and left a tip, along with an apology.
"Here’s the thing, if you do this, we are going to expose you, and we’re going to make it aware," said Michael's bartender Dawn Lamb. "So we again can prevent this from happening."
The company appears to have deleted the post with the thief's face after he made it right.
"There are no 1,000.00 bills"
On X, multiple commenters suggested that the dine-and-dasher's real crime was counterfeiting money—a serious federal offense in the U.S.
"I’m not an expert in counterfeiting, but I just think if you’re going to counterfeit a $1,000 bill, you probably shouldn’t use the same guy that’s on a $100 bill," said @dmall3. "I guess he didn’t realize $1,000 bills actually exist and look nothing like this."
What the repentant thief used was actually a novelty bill labeled as "paper ancestor money" in the bottom left corner to make it clear that it's not real cash. It's a Chinese tradition to burn fake bills like this on ancestor birthdays or during relevant holidays in order to send riches to the deceased to enjoy in the afterlife.
It's not counterfeit because it's clearly marked, even if it's easy to miss when you're on a busy shift.
"There are no 1,000.00 bills, but there are millions of very stupid people. 49% of the American electorate voted for the Kackler, for Godssake," wrote @Floisanee4, likely referring to former Vice President Kamala Harris.
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The post “We are going to expose you”: Dine-and-dasher who paid with $1000 bill gets shamed into returning with real money appeared first on The Daily Dot.