Disney employee stole $112K from restaurant register, deputies say

[MissM]

In all my years going to Disney, I can only recall one time I asked for a refund on food. It was at Cosmic Rays and both our burgers were just inedible. We picked at them and finally gave up. I went in search of a manager. She offered me replacement meals but at that point, I had lost my appetite so she took me to a register and processed a credit card refund. It was a relatively involved process, with her needing my receipt and keying in the return items. (For the record, she didn't do an entire transaction refund, but rather just the burgers. We still wound up paying for the drinks.) So given how strict this QS return was, I find it mind boggling that so many were able to be done with little to no oversight!

I have to wonder if there is some sort of "dummy" or "test" login or code that this person used which didn't tie the transactions all to her directly. Might have helped it fly under the radar if it came up as a test transaction for example.

 

[fosse76]

I'm not sure how people think this type of theft would be caught simply by the POS system. She was stealing by "issuing refunds" so she didn't need to "cook the books" to make the numbers match (in other words, she doesn't have to account for a missing $100 because it was written-off as a refund, so there is nothing to hide). The only way to catch this is by oversight. If she was issuing hundreds of dollars of refunds a day and no one caught-on, just how widespread is the issuance of refunds at any particular location? She got caught because of surveillance. But did someone "rat her out" or did management finally catch on?

 

[asianway]

I'm not sure how people think this type of theft would be caught simply by the POS system. She was stealing by "issuing refunds" so she didn't need to "cook the books" to make the numbers match (in other words, she doesn't have to account for a missing $100 because it was written-off as a refund, so there is nothing to hide). The only way to catch this is by oversight. If she was issuing hundreds of dollars of refunds a day and no one caught-on, just how widespread is the issuance of refunds at any particular location? She got caught because of surveillance. But did someone "rat her out" or did management finally catch on?

Cash paid outs are typically reviewed in any sort of retail or F&B operation as part of a management checklist.

 

[njDizFan]

A POS system can be fairly easily massaged for anybody with supervisor override. Discounting or removing an item off a meal as a comp is not unheard of(and maybe even happen multiple times a day) but there should be oversite. As a GM I would review those metrics weekly just so I knew exactly was going on out there. You need to allow latitude to your Assitants and allow them to make calls like that. .

But $2700 in cash in 1 day. What percentage of revenue is that for this restaurant?

 

[WildcatDen]

a few quarters of GREAT numbers and then Liquidation....

As in 3? So three more quarters and then the Disney Company goes under? Sooner than your usual posting. I figured 2018 for Iger and then, I don't know, maybe sometime in my great grandkids lifetime Disney will cease to be?

 

[tissandtully]

This is an issue at Universal as well. I opened IoA in '99 and my managers were pretty blatant about stealing from tills.

 

[senor_jorge]

A POS system can be fairly easily massaged for anybody with supervisor override. Discounting or removing an item off a meal as a comp is not unheard of(and maybe even happen multiple times a day) but there should be oversite. As a GM I would review those metrics weekly just so I knew exactly was going on out there. You need to allow latitude to your Assitants and allow them to make calls like that. .

But $2700 in cash in 1 day. What percentage of revenue is that for this restaurant?

The next leap in logic is whether or not it stood out against other locations. If it didn't... why not?

 

[Scrungo]

Sometimes those cast member discounts just aren't enough.

 

[Princess_AmyK]

i don't know why people do this type of thing. You're going to get caught. End of discussion. If not now, then later. Smarter people have tried and not succeeded.
People just need to be honest because getting caught up in your lies isn't worth it.

 

[ford91exploder]

The next leap in logic is whether or not it stood out against other locations. If it didn't... why not?

If it did not well I'd say Disney has a real problem with their Loss Prevention people.

 

[ford91exploder]

I'm not sure how people think this type of theft would be caught simply by the POS system. She was stealing by "issuing refunds" so she didn't need to "cook the books" to make the numbers match (in other words, she doesn't have to account for a missing $100 because it was written-off as a refund, so there is nothing to hide). The only way to catch this is by oversight. If she was issuing hundreds of dollars of refunds a day and no one caught-on, just how widespread is the issuance of refunds at any particular location? She got caught because of surveillance. But did someone "rat her out" or did management finally catch on?

How much cash is still in use at Disney? Most POS systems limit refunds to the payment type i.e. if it was a CC transaction you cannot refund to cash. Cash refunds are limited to the transaction amount and are frequently bounded by time like a refund cannot be processed as CASH if more than 1 hour has passed etc.

 

[Uncle Lupe]

If you have the supervisor override and another login of an on the clock employees you can make the POS system do anything. Greed gets them every time. Wonder how many different logins were used.

 

[rob0519]

This raised a lot of questions. I want to know how much money really wasn't accounted for since there was more than one cast member doing this unethical and criminal behavior. It is quite obvious an auditor or any accountant doing the books for Disney should have noticed the money totals didn't match up sooner in terms of how money was in the register compare to the actual sales. The other thing is I thought there would've been procedures to prevent this type of behavior.

All is I known for sure is no one is going to be hiring that employee at a bank, or any position that involves handling money.

Unless you're one of the upline management staff in charge of this fiasco, why you do need to know "how much money really wasn't accounted for"? It could be just the $112K or a $1mm. Other than your curiosity why should the actual amount matter? Do you really think even if the auditors figure it out they would want to embarrass themselves by publishing an even larger theft?

 

[flynnibus]

I feel like this could have easily been prevented. When I worked in retail, our drawers were counted down while we witnessed it, after our shift was over.

This raised a lot of questions. I want to know how much money really wasn't accounted for since there was more than one cast member doing this unethical and criminal behavior. It is quite obvious an auditor or any accountant doing the books for Disney should have noticed the money totals didn't match up sooner in terms of how money was in the register compare to the actual sales.

You both are missing how the scam works. The til matches up with the expected amount.. and the counts match up. Because the cash is taken from the drawer for a REFUND, not simply skimming from the drawer. She authorizes a refund, but instead of giving the money to the customer, she just keeps it. Because it's services, not goods, there is no inventory to show up as missing when the refund is done fraudulently.

I'm not sure how people think this type of theft would be caught simply by the POS system

The point is the POS accounting and management of it should have flagged the behavior, or at least had better controls on the refund process itself. 'who is watching the boss' kind of oversight. Every refund would probably need an override, and so they can track who is authorizing the refunds. The lady probably knew what level of activity would tip off the alerts in the system and would stay under them.

 

[gobstoper27]

You both are missing how the scam works. The til matches up with the expected amount.. and the counts match up. Because the cash is taken from the drawer for a REFUND, not simply skimming from the drawer. She authorizes a refund, but instead of giving the money to the customer, she just keeps it. Because it's services, not goods, there is no inventory to show up as missing when the refund is done fraudulently.



Thanks for BREAKING it down, but a red flag steal should been raised. A single employee over riding such an excessive amount, per month, in a restaurant at that....mind boggling and no excuse for it. Wonder what the audit process entails.

 

[flynnibus]

Thanks for BREAKING it down, but a red flag steal should been raised. A single employee over riding such an excessive amount, per month, in a restaurant at that....mind boggling and no excuse for it. Wonder what the audit process entails

She was the head teller... she's going to be involved in a lot of transactions and think of the volume that Harbor House does...

The thing that stands out to me is how there are still so many cash transactions...

 

[Baloo62]

$112K at CHH? So that's like, what, 5 Anchors Aweigh sandwiches, 3 Lobster Rolls and a Corn Cobbette?

 

[Fairy32]

This is a big issue with a lot of retail establishments. Fake cash refunds. Employees find the receipts, and do the returns. At Disney, the amount able to get away before noticed is probably higher due to volume.

 

[Glasgow]

She really should have just written a program that took the decimal remainders of all transactions and placed them in a separate bank account ...

 

[ford91exploder]

She really should have just written a program that took the decimal remainders of all transactions and placed them in a separate bank account ...

That was a great hack wrong but brilliant