Barista Stole £4,000 After Getting Customers To Pay On His Own Card Machine
10 Sep 2024
A barista who stole £4,000 from a popular high street coffee shop chain has been fined just £200 after pocketing payments using his own card machine.
26-year-old, Brandon Leung, was able to siphon the money using a SumUp chip and pin machine purchased online for £70.
However his sneaky money making scheme came crashing down when a customer complained that she had been charged £94 for her order instead of £42.10.
Unable to process the refund to the customer, he resorted to withdrawing cash at an ATM to manually refund her.
The odd reimbursement led the woman to flag the interaction with Leung’s bosses.
Working at Joe & The Juice the bold barista is said to have come up with the chip-and-pin reader scam after seeing senior staff “use their own card machines” to take payments.
Leung, who had a past conviction for theft by an employee, admitted fraud but avoided jail as he was instead sentenced to a 12-month community order and 120 hours’ unpaid work.
He was also let off from repaying the company despite his solicitor saying he had offered to.