Local establishments in the United States has stated that they believed that a lot of employees of restaurants used this Wagon Wheel Method to steal cash from businesses over the last three months. The incident was reported on the 20th of September 2021 and the police in the area arrested four people under various sections.

The restaurant says that four employees of the restaurant have been making use of the industry-wide scam to steal funds from the establishment over the course of three months. The scam is known by the name of The Wagon Wheel Scam. Continue reading to find out more about the fraud and the individuals who are involved in the fraud.

What is the Wagon Wheel Method?

A Wheel Wheel scheme is a traditional method used to commit frauds and frauds. When a consumer is seated for a meal, a waiter will arrive to take the order and they don’t just serve the food but will also serve a milkshake as complimentary.

When customers get their bill, they choose to withdraw cash or use a card to pay for the bill. However, prior to close of the purchase, the server plays tricks, and opens a new account and transfers the price of the milkshake from the original bill to another and then closes the server to get the price for the drink.

Who Are Involved in the Wagon Wheel Scam?

After reviewing, we discovered specifics of the four individuals who are suspected of being involved in the fraud. According to the sources of the four employees who are part of fraud are

  • Katarina Zirdum, 31, Cape May
  • Bojan Balaban, 28, Seattle
  • Ana Galesic, 34, Cape May
  • Verginia Gheorghita, 27, Miami

The employees are from the restaurant in the city that are charged with conspiracy and for committing the scam known as thescam. According to detectives and the local police force, these people are the ones who have committed an act known as the Wagon Wheel Scam to steal a sum of $25,000 over three months.

How Does the Scam Work?

The wagon Wheel scam is a scam that is used frequently within the industry of hospitality. It involves shifting the complimentary meals servers are responsible for, distributing them various charges, and then taking the cost of the meal without the knowledge of the restaurant’s proprietor.

Following the investigation, police officers and Cape May Police Department found the individuals mentioned earlier guilty, and that they were engaged in an act known as the The Wagon Wheel Scam by creating ghost checks.

The scammers were indicted for 2C:20-3a (third degree crime) and conspiracy for Theft 2C:5-2A (1) as well as other charges.

How to Prevent the Wagon Wheel Method?

Restaurants are asked to put in place strategies to track and eliminate the practices and strategies that are usually not noticed. Data analytics is a platform that helps identify profitable behaviors through the application of sophisticated analytics on sources of data, to gather data and notify restaurant owners of any frauds.

Restaurant owners also need to learn the tricks about what to do in order to guard yourself from scams.

Conclusion

The Wagon Wheel scam targets a large number of restaurant patrons as well as the other customers who have been loyal to. Therefore, the restaurant’s city owner discovered the scam after identifying gain-seeking behavior of some employees. When the report was filed by the authorities, they investigated and discovered that four employees were involved in the scam , and they were was charged under different sections.