As I work in a restaurant, I can probably explain this a bit better as I've had to deal with it.
Most restaurants place two food orders a week. Ours technically places four, but that's because we order from two separate companies, Bridgebrand and Sysco.
Each delivery we're usually getting a box of steaks. They're still fresh, just vacuum sealed and put in a box, so, you know, no blood all over everything.
The way this scam goes is, since we - and every other restaurant that orders steaks - order by weight and not by number of steaks, all a shifty driver has to do is open up the box and take one or two steaks out, set them aside, and the restaurants typically won't notice that the box is maybe a pound or two lighter than it should be.
Then, at the end of their route, they stop by restaurants that aren't on their delivery route or are even customers of whichever company they work for. They then say that there was an extra box of steaks that got put int he truck by accident and, hey, would you like to buy them at a discounted price since the warehouse won't take them back?
The real catch here is that that last point, for a lot of these companies is true, and sometimes the drivers are encouraged to attempt to sell the leftovers at a discounted price in order to possibly open up another restaurant for them to sell to. The way to tell if it's actually legit is if the delivery guy asks to be paid in cash instead of having a cheque cut for the company.
Of course, we now just buy the meat for our steaks uncut, and cut them ourselves. It takes maybe ten minutes, all the steaks look big and juicy and are the right weight, and we don't have to deal with this shenanigans.
So, it's not out of the trunk of a car which even Billy Joe Bob from Hicksville would think is shady, but from the back of a delivery truck belonging to a legit food service company. Still shady as all hell, but the truck plus the uniform gives it enough legitimacy for it to work.
This comment is far too long. My apologies for that, but I hope I shed some light on that shady topic.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 11:16 pm (UTC)Most restaurants place two food orders a week. Ours technically places four, but that's because we order from two separate companies, Bridgebrand and Sysco.
Each delivery we're usually getting a box of steaks. They're still fresh, just vacuum sealed and put in a box, so, you know, no blood all over everything.
The way this scam goes is, since we - and every other restaurant that orders steaks - order by weight and not by number of steaks, all a shifty driver has to do is open up the box and take one or two steaks out, set them aside, and the restaurants typically won't notice that the box is maybe a pound or two lighter than it should be.
Then, at the end of their route, they stop by restaurants that aren't on their delivery route or are even customers of whichever company they work for. They then say that there was an extra box of steaks that got put int he truck by accident and, hey, would you like to buy them at a discounted price since the warehouse won't take them back?
The real catch here is that that last point, for a lot of these companies is true, and sometimes the drivers are encouraged to attempt to sell the leftovers at a discounted price in order to possibly open up another restaurant for them to sell to. The way to tell if it's actually legit is if the delivery guy asks to be paid in cash instead of having a cheque cut for the company.
Of course, we now just buy the meat for our steaks uncut, and cut them ourselves. It takes maybe ten minutes, all the steaks look big and juicy and are the right weight, and we don't have to deal with this shenanigans.
So, it's not out of the trunk of a car which even Billy Joe Bob from Hicksville would think is shady, but from the back of a delivery truck belonging to a legit food service company. Still shady as all hell, but the truck plus the uniform gives it enough legitimacy for it to work.
This comment is far too long. My apologies for that, but I hope I shed some light on that shady topic.