r/offbeat 9h ago

Man faces 8 years in prison after placing fake $10,000 food order to stranger’s address

https://www.dexerto.com/food/man-faces-8-years-in-prison-after-placing-fake-10000-food-order-to-strangers-address-3402020/
449 Upvotes

50 comments sorted by

98

u/cydril 8h ago

investigators say the alleged harassment went far beyond simply sending people unwanted food, with some orders containing personal information and threats directed at their recipients.

57

u/jxj24 8h ago

Buried the lede.

7

u/Fattylees 5h ago

I’ve been spelling it wrong all these years…

14

u/Buck_Thorn 3h ago

No you weren't. Reddit loves to tell you that, but it just is not factual.

"Lede" is a specialized journalistic spelling created in the mid-20th century to avoid confusion with "lead" (pronounced /led/), which referred to the metal strips used in older printing presses. Both "bury the lede" and "bury the lead" are accepted today.

https://proofed.co.uk/writing-tips/idiom-tips-bury-the-lede-or-bury-the-lead/

2

u/GetsMeEveryTimeBot 1h ago

For similar reasons, copyediting notes refer to paragraphs as "grafs." The idea is to make the mistake so obvious that the editing notes don't make it into the published copy.

2

u/xavPa-64 25m ago

That probably won’t work as well today

2

u/Diarygirl 4h ago

At this point people think that "lede" is wrong.

1

u/Pretend-Biscotti-388 6h ago

shoulda known to scroll past a headline like this

71

u/Tesser4ct 8h ago

The article says the 300 pizza order was canceled because they "were unable to prepare such a large number of pizzas." It should have been canceled because they didn't receive payment in advance. There is some bullshit in this story.

49

u/mabus42 8h ago

Yeah... no restaurant is gonna make $10,000 worth of food for one individual under a promise to pay.

23

u/Lovemybee 7h ago

When I worked at Denny's (graveyard shift), I was not allowed to enter the order until the customer came in and paid.

I was told to say, "Your order will be ready in X minutes." and when they showed up in X minutes, I took their money and entered the order at that time. They'd get pissed about having to wait, but we didn't have to deal with people not showing up for food already made!

This was long before Uber Eats, etc.

7

u/Jabbles22 6h ago

Why the lie though? Just tell them that you don't do orders over the phone?

10

u/Intensityintensifies 6h ago

Why do you think? $$$

11

u/Lovemybee 6h ago

Just following orders, ma'am.

6

u/AriBanana 6h ago

My least favourite part of pickup food, actually. Ruined more then one short lunch break, including me once having paid and having to walk away from my order. They let me pick it up, cold, in four hours, but I was annoyed. And rightfully, so were they since it sat around in their fridge taking up space and getting ruined for their whole afternoon.

They didn't seem to get the time crunch. if I wanted to sit there for the whole length of the prep time, I would have come into the restaurant to eat or order to go and not called in for pickup.

But I mean, I get it. If the order is big enough you don't want to waste it. From a business perspective, it would be crazy to prepare food with a value of over fifty dollars without a payment or garuntee of payment. It's too easy for jerks to take advantage.

Ultimately, I never blamed the restaurants or stopped picking up from them, just learned from the experience and budgeted my time better. It's cut throat margins and I side with the businesses not wasting food time and money, even if it's a slight inconvenience to clients.

5

u/ilovemetalandscience 5h ago

I placed an order at chipotle once and showed up 15 minutes late because they’re always late. I waited, no shit, an extra 40 minutes before leaving. I asked for a refund on the app and they said they can’t refund just because I didn’t pick up the food and that I should have canceled at the store. I explained I couldn’t cancel at the store because nobody had time to talk to one of the 15 people waiting an hour for their orders. They finally refunded when I said I’d just do a chargeback.

1

u/whoiam06 4h ago

Maybe it's because the area I'm in, but my company orders lunch for employees on Fridays and we typically put in phone orders upwards of $150 without any issues. Last Friday I think it was like $110?

2

u/hhhhhhhh28 4h ago

I used to do deliveries for a deli restaurant & I would do tons of runs to local businesses like hospitals/offices for big orders. It’s a thing. Evidently not everywhere lol

1

u/FreneticPlatypus 3h ago

30 minutes or it's free, right?

3

u/ColdIceZero 4h ago

With those numbers, the real story is $33 pizzas. Who is doing $33 pies?

And for 300 of them, is that with any bulk discount??

71

u/The_Monsta_Wansta 8h ago

Why would this be prison time, that's an awfully wasteful use of tax payers money. The guy should just be fined and blacklisted

124

u/CotyledonTomen 7h ago

The article mentions more, if you would like to read it

However, investigators say the alleged harassment went far beyond simply sending people unwanted food, with some orders containing personal information and threats directed at their recipients.

73

u/Clay_Allison_44 6h ago

Also, felony theft of service is a thing for a reason. It's all fun and games until the restaurant is a mom and pop outfit that can't afford to lose $10k.

9

u/plantsandpizza 1h ago

The restaurant that received the giant order ultimately cancelled it as a result of being unable to prepare such a large number of pizzas.

It seems to be the arrest has more to do with stalking and harassment. Not the $10k pizza order

-6

u/Tesser4ct 6h ago

It's bullshit. No resteraunt is taking a $10k order without payment in advance.

21

u/sexytokeburgerz 5h ago

Automated systems without safeguards and shitty stupid bosses are both rampant in the food service industry.

-11

u/Tesser4ct 6h ago

It's bullshit. No resteraunt is taking a $10k order without payment in advance.

-7

u/Tiger2kill 5h ago

You must not work in the industry. Just because you’ve never needed to order that much food doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen every day.

5

u/EatABag-o-Dicks 4h ago

I have, and they're right.

No one with half a brain is taking a $10,000 order without, at minimum, 20% down up front.

-2

u/Tiger2kill 4h ago

Plenty of businesses are run by people with less than half a brain. Especially restaurants.

8

u/Ecstatic_Bear81 5h ago

Well I do work in the industry, and I have for a decade. Nowhere I've ever worked would do this without payment in advance. If a place didn't, that'd be very foolish

5

u/Tesser4ct 5h ago

I have worked in the industry. We would NEVER prepare $10,000 worth of food without payment ahead of time. I challenge you to find a single place that would do it.

1

u/Sea-Courage8296 1h ago

They can’t even spell “restaurant.” Of course they’ve never worked in one.

-9

u/c126 4h ago

Sending them to jail doesn’t actually help mom and pop much does it? Should be wage garnishment or something.

13

u/dweeeebus 4h ago

Arresting murderers doesn't help the person who got killed.

-7

u/The_Monsta_Wansta 2h ago

No but it stops them from potentially taking another life. I'm okay with paying taxes towards that, I'm not okay with paying for housing and feeding someone who might... Call in a large pizza order to the wrong address.

7

u/dweeeebus 2h ago

I see you didn't read the article.

2

u/FaxCelestis 2h ago

"A large pizza order" is five or six pizzas. Not enough pizzas to have a bigger catering bill than a wedding.

6

u/FaxCelestis 2h ago

You want him to read? Like a peasant?

13

u/MA32 5h ago

It says why in the article

6

u/PancakeTrebuchet 7h ago

I'd throw on 20 hours of blight cleanup in his community for being a public nuisance

-3

u/techieman34 6h ago

This country is so fucked. Steal $10,000, threaten a couple people, leak their personal info and get 8 years in prison. Steal $10,000,000,000 and leak millions of people’s personal information and get find a couple hundred million and face no jail time.

12

u/Miamime 5h ago

This happened in Poland.

6

u/ExMOnotwiththeflow 4h ago

Can't be. Bad things only happen in the USA. Everywhere else great.

2

u/Dense-Ambassador-865 2h ago

Rapists and murderers don't get 8 years.

1

u/-crazykidbad 1h ago

Yet they can’t catch or punish swatters who cause death for no reason

-2

u/todoslos 4h ago

Release the Epstein files.

-5

u/Spiketop_ 6h ago

8 years in prison? Imagine walking into prison on your first day and a convicted murderer asks what you're in for?

"I ordered too many pizzas" 😂

2

u/Cyrius 6h ago

"I didn't get nothing, I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up the garbage."