Steak 'n Shake 'n Steal? Rogue Employee Blamed For Credit Card Caper

Have you eaten at the Tinley Park Steak n’ Shake in the last couple months? Then you better check your credit card statements because police say a rogue employee was recently tacking about $10 onto purchases.

The police first learned of the credit card caper when they were contacted last week by a manager from the Harlem Avenue Steak n’ Shake.

The manager told police a customer stopped in to “report that he had been charged an additional $10 on his credit card when he purchased food” two days earlier.

The customer “advised that he ordered $4.33 worth of food and his receipt showed $14.33 with the difference being added as a tip,” police said.

The manager “began looking into the charge and observed that the server” was a 24-year-old Homewood man who began working at the restaurant in September, police said. The manager then noticed the same Homewood man “on multiple occasions … reopened a charge to post adjust the bill and usually adds approximately a $10 tip to the customer’s card.”

The manager did “not know the identity of any other customers and only one other person has come to the business regarding the additional charge,” police said. The manager also let the law know the Homewood man “works the overnight shift and the post adjusts are after the last manager … has left” at about 3 in the morning.

A different manager reportedly told police “most of the post adjusts are happening at the drive-thru register where people don’t normally tip.”

The Homewood man was fired from his job at the Steak n’ Shake but faces no criminal charges, police said. A Steak n’ Shake manager reportedly told officers he will check video surveillance tapes and provide police with receipts of the questionable transactions.

Steak n’ Shake customers have lost nearly $1,000 in the scam, police said.