Do you turn a blind eye to VIP comps in your operation? Is it possible that employees are taking advantage of these comps to pocket cash from regular paying customers? We built Avero Loss Prevention to automatically detect theft and stop future scams, one of which is known as the “VIP Comp Abuse” scam.
- How it works: Two unrelated groups come to the restaurant. One group has high-profile guests, “VIPs”, who the manager knows well thus routinely comps their entire meals. The other group has regular paying customers. Both groups order food and drinks and enjoy their meal. The server presents the check from the POS system to the regular customers, who pay with cash and then leave. The server then goes to the POS system and transfers one or two items from the cash check to the VIP table check, pocketing the cash for those items.
- Why it works: The server knows that the manager will comp every item on the VIP table check. Because the meal is complimentary, the VIPs won’t be presented with a check from the POS system, so they won’t alert the manager that there are items they didn’t order on the check. The server is banking on the fact that nobody will notice the extra items on the check.
- How to uncover it: If you find this type of behavior, think about policies you could implement that would ensure that you’re not losing profits to this scam – requiring transfers to be authorized by a manager, reviewing comp checks to ensure they have the right items on them, etc.
Don’t have time for all that manual work? Avero Loss Prevention can do it automatically, helping you improve your restaurant profits. Learn more and get started today, and check out other common restaurant fraud scams:
- Item Transfer scam
- Check Reuse scam
- Transfer scam
- Cash Coupon abuse
- POS Authorization scam
- Tip Inflation scam
- Automatic Gratuity scam
