A man (48) and his son (17) were recently arrested on April 3 in France for allegedly scamming around 40 restaurants in the Var department on the French Riviera over the course of three years, using a well-devised tactic.
Dining and dashing when the bill arrives is not uncommon, but it’s unlikely that someone could pull it off dozens of times in the same region. That’s why this conman duo modified their approach, using the same trick each time.
They posed as average guests who simply didn’t have cash on them, and whose credit card conveniently never worked. The father would apologize for the inconvenience and leave his ID or another personal document as a guarantee that he would return to pay the bill. However, he never came back — instead, he would declare the document stolen or lost and request a new one.
To pull off the same scam so often in the same area, they had to be both lucky and thorough in researching potential targets.
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The Ici Provence portal was the first to report how the duo would carefully research restaurants online, targeting only those whose owners were described as friendly toward customers in online reviews. They also never visited the same place twice.
They dressed well to appear as respectable guests and usually ordered an appetizer, main course, dessert, wine, and an aperitif. When the bill arrived, the 48-year-old would present a credit card that never worked and would send his son to a nearby ATM to try to withdraw cash.
The teenager would return empty-handed, and his seemingly embarrassed father would apologize and promise to return the next day with the money. Restaurant owners rarely objected, as the customers seemed sincere and offered to leave identification.
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Source: Euronews, Foto: Nin/UBS