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Interested in your opinion on an ethical dilemma

April 23, 2015 02:35PM
Individuals metabolize alcohol at different rates depending on many factors including weight. Personally, I never do a shop that requires purchasing more than one drink without getting a waiver from the scheduler.

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Have PV-500 & willing to travel.
"Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard." (The Fourth Doctor, The Face of Evil, 1977)

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April 23, 2015 06:59PM
No, no, no. You were not "an independent contractor" at the time you were at the bar. You were a private citizen on your own time and your own dime. If this bar visit occurred on another day, would you be notifying the scheduler for the mystery shopping company who shops the dining room? If you see something that makes you feel obligated to notify someone, go to the appropriate authority.

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April 23, 2015 08:28PM
I would not have included in the report since it was irrelevant to the job that you were assigned. I agree that if I felt morally obligated to report it I would just call restaurant management and be objective in what you observed. It really was separate from the mystery shop.
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May 06, 2015 03:25PM
@Chix wrote:


You 'know' that the bartender is pretty much pocketing the cash himself but you never see him do it, and again - this has nothing to do with your MS visit.

But you don't know you did not see him pocket the money. I'm glad court are NOT suppose to use such thinking.

A Dad shopping the Ark-LA-Tex and beyond.
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May 06, 2015 03:56PM
Your job is almost always to report objectively. If you did not see him put it in the register, OR put it in his pocket just say so. The employee took the cash and walked around the corner out of site. He returned XXX seconds/minutes later and continued working. I did/did not see the order get rang into the register.


Just be objective and let them read it. THey have cameras, receipts they can review, and other ways of finding out if that order was rang in. You don't need to do more than report the facts and nothing but the facts. That's exactly the type of behavior that they are looking for for bar audits. Things that are unusual or should not be going on.

I would report it.

CEO The Mystery Shoppers Depot
US Wide route shopper with 12k+ shops completed over 48 states and 6 countries.
Airbnb host based in Chicago and 10% discount if you mention this forum
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May 06, 2015 03:59PM
@dspeakes wrote:

here's another approach you might take:

Call the restaurant, ask for the manager. "I was in there Monday around (time of day) and I went to the bar. The bartender made me this great drink, I think he called it his "personal special." It was only $5 and it was really good so I'm wondering if that's available every day or only certain hours. He didn't give me a receipt so I'm not sure if that was its real name though."

Mission accomplished. Don't give your name. If it's on the level, the bartender has nothing to worry about. You communicated the price, the time of day you were there, the day you were there, and the fact that it probably wasn't rung up. He can figure out the rest.

You weren't mystery shopping at the time this happened. You were just a customer of the bar.

Block the caller ID on your phone before making the call, don't give a name (or give a fake name), and hang up if he gets intrusive.

For all you know the manager himself might have been tending bar and had latitude to discount a drink if he wanted. So don't mention that you didn't see where your five dollar bill ended up.


This is a great approach. Ive been given free drinks at locations and ended up finding out they are allowed to spend about 50 per shift on free drinks and my gf and I were both given two drinks. I was so worried this otherwise awesome employee was going to get fired and turns out that it was totally okayo.

Point being, dont make any assertions BEYOND what you actually saw. Let them decide how to use that information and interpret it.

CEO The Mystery Shoppers Depot
US Wide route shopper with 12k+ shops completed over 48 states and 6 countries.
Airbnb host based in Chicago and 10% discount if you mention this forum
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May 06, 2015 06:19PM
@shoppingdad uh.... not trying to argue here, but surely you've heard of people being convicted on "circumstantial evidence"? Whether he was seen pocketing or not, what wasn't seen was him ringing it up at a register. So really the only question was, was the register he was supposed to use the one that was visible, or was "his" register out of sight around the corner? When you're working a register, there are rules for when/how you ring up the sale and put away the cash and which register you use.

Now at my recent job, all big bills over $20 were immediately put in a locked box under the counter. So if i reached down there with the bill, the customer wouldn't see if i put it in the box or laid it on top. But the sale would have been rung up and a receipt issued so if my drawer was $50 short it wouldn't take a secret shopper to alert management. But if I didn't ring it up and no change was needed, my disposal of the cash wouldn't be the tip-off, it would be the failure to ring up the sale.

Time to build a bigger bridge.
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