The Heartbreaking Story Of a Bartender Who Received a $200,000 Tip

 

Except the card issuer refused to honor it. Here's the story, via Reddit

I bartend and serve at a restaurant in St. Louis. Today the absolute weirdest thing happened to me, ever. We're pretty slow during lunch shifts. I was working by myself and had literally only had one table the entire shift when about a half hour before close two mid-20s sisters walked in and said another person would be meeting them. I had been bored the entire shift and basically just filling the time with doing mundane cleaning tasks so actual human interaction was pretty exciting. They were pretty nice. One of the sisters was taking the other out after she had gone through a pretty big personal trauma and she obviously wanted to show her sister a good time. They ordered quite a few things and a gentleman met them.

Throughout the meal the sister that was treating the other one would flag me down and talk with me and kept saying things like “Don’t tell my sister how I tip.” “Today I’m your guardian angel.” Etc, etc. I’ve worked in restaurants forever and can tell you from experience that usually people who say things like this are full of shit. But she seemed to be tossing a LOT of cash around to her guests and the situation was just bizarre. She asked for the check only a few minutes after we closed (which is super nice and courteous anyway, often we have people walk in right before we close and hang out for ages which forces me to stay later). She signed the receipt (paid with a normal looking Visa debit) after I brought her the check. I don’t like to be rude and look at or pick up the checks before the person has left and since she told me explicitly not to react to the check in front of her sister I especially didn’t want to on this check.

They leave and I look at the receipt and yeah. $200,000. Being realistic and not insane I immediately ran to get my manager. He was in a meeting but the corporate office for our entire restaurant is two floors above the restaurant I work at so I ran up there to grab someone and they were empty too. I called the marketing director who I had just seen previously and my manager finally gets back from the meeting he was in and the marketing director and my manager were both as incredulous as I was. They decided to call the credit card processing company. I basically couldn’t function at this point because even though I was pretty suspicious it’s still pretty life changing to even think about getting that kind of money just for being courteous and doing your job.

Basically, the gist of it is that banks don’t honor payouts on excessive tips. (Apparently they can bounce back tips that are even over 30% of the bill… which is kind of crazy because I often receive those kind of tips on tabs of regulars or other industry workers.) Although they did say that things like this actually happens pretty often like when someone wins the lottery or a jackpot at the casino, receives a lot of money in a settlement or inheritance, or was already wealthy but terminally ill with little time left. I guess nobody actually ever gets the payout on it. I didn’t even attempt to close out the check for $200,000 obviously so who knows if that kind of money was even in the account. But yeah, it was still a pretty exciting and crazy afternoon. I wish I could get a hold of my “guardian angel” and at least thank her for the entertainment haha. And if it was real, I’d thank her for the sentiment at least. It’d be cool to know why she was possessed to give me of all people that kind of money.

A lot of it is blurred because I wanted to be safe rather than sorry. I didn’t want to include any personal information of hers’ in the probable case it was a fraud or a joke. I didn’t know if my workplace would want their names attached to it either and since I’m not $200,000 dollars richer I kinda want to keep my job! But yeah, is this the weirdest thing in the world or what?
Edit: lol I don't understand all the comments calling me naive. I immediately felt like it was fake and got management involved. I don't really know how that correlates to me getting scammed or having the check walked out on. We closed it out at $111.54. She can't dispute it and there was obviously enough money in the account because the pre authorization for $111.54 went through. It's still wtf-worthy to look down at a 200k tip, even when you immediately sensed bullshit and got higher-ups involved.

Just as expected: 

Other Redditors chimed in. It's a scam:

“SHE WAS TRYING TO SCAM YOU! Basically it gets the guest out of paying their bill. If the server were to reconcile their transactions at the end of the night the entire transaction would be flagged and a stop payment would be put in place immediately. If by some miracle the transaction were approved all the cardholder has to do is call in and say its fraud, boom charges reversed.” “

That is a common scam. I used to be a bartender, and every once in a while that would happen. The person just has to put something “impossible” on the bill, and Visa will not process it.”

Good to know.

[H/T: Elite]

Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com