A 48-year-old man and his son, 18, were recently arrested for reportedly defrauding around 100 restaurants in France’s Toulon region in the last 3 years, using a very well thought-out tactic.
Skipping out on the bill at a restaurant isn’t exactly unusual, but doing so about 100 times in a span of 3 years definitely is. On April 3rd, police in Toulon, France, arrested a 48-year-old man and his son on suspicion of defrauding dozens of eateries in the region by leaving without paying the bill. According to a recent investigation, the father-son duo had been using the same tactic successfully for three years, posing as average patrons who simply didn’t have any cash on them and whose credit card didn’t work. The father would apologize for the inconvenience and leave his ID or social security card as collateral until he returned to settle the bill. Only he never came back, opting instead to declare his card stolen and have it reissued.
Photo: Jay Wennington/Unsplash
To pull this sort of stunt around 100 times in 3 years without anyone doing anything about it required mountains of luck or some special precautions by the fraudstares. Ici Provence reported that the duo researched their victims thoroughly online, targeting only restaurants whose owners were described as customer-friendly in online reviews and never going to the same place twice.
Dressing up nicely to keep up appearances, the father and son would usually order a starter, main course, dessert, wine, and digestif, with the bill ranging between 80 and 150 euros ($88 and $165). When the bill came, the 48-year-old man would present a credit card that never worked, and he would send his son to a nearby ATM to try and withdraw some cash. The boy would come back empty-handed, and his seemingly embarrassed father would apologize and promise to return the next day with the money, leaving his ID or social security card as collateral. Such gestures are perceived as a sign of trust, so restauranteurs rarely protested, but the duo never returned.
Police sources said that the man declared his ID and social security card stolen and had them reissued only to leave them with their next food fraud victim. The strategy worked dozens of times until August of last year, when a restaurant owner posted photos of the ID left by the scammers on social media, detailing his experience with them. His post eventually went viral, and dozens of other restauranteurs claimed to have fallen victim to the same tactic used by the very same duo. Eventually, a total of 43 restaurant owners around Tulon ended up filing complaints with the police.
Photo: SumUp
Following months of investigation, French police identified and arrested the father-and-son duo, both of whom admitted to defrauding several establishments over a period of three years. The son, who was a minor for most of that period, claimed that they sometimes ate for free two or three times a week, while the father admitted to around 100 charges of “food fraud” between January 2021 and August 2024.
According to police, some of the victims had even talked to each other about the scam, but they had either been too busy to file complaints or didn’t care much about their loss, which was just what the scammers hoped when selecting friendly restauranteurs as victims.
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