And a good reason why the OP should have approached management with what happened instead of going in and acting like a raving lunatic. I am certain, if the waiter is doing this intentionally, they would not want him working in their establishment.

Dear YYZC2—

First of all, as a native of EZE please accept my sincere apologies for what this crook did to you. I feel greatly ashamed when these things happen in my home town because they tarnish the reputation of a City that is trying very hard to become a reliable and well established tourist destination. I’m truly sorry this happened to you.

I have contacts in the Restaurant Business and I will see how I can try to look into this incident and make sure that the owners of El Establo are properly informed of what happened to you.

Having said this, I will also be very candid and tell you that you should consider yourself very lucky. Had you gotten overly physical with the waiter, chances are you would still be in a local cell, courtesy of the Policia Federal Argentina (and with no Hotel Points credited to your favorite loyalty program).

Taking a stand does not mean taking justice into your own hands… and I’m shocked that a self proclaimed regional “quasi-resident” like ViajeroPerpetuo would cheer on such behavior. Its very poor advice that shows pathetic judgement, and I urge you not to follow it.

I assure you that I can understand your outrage, frustration, anger and disgust at what this waiter did to you, but I am forced to condemn your actions.

The paradox of this situation and how you handled it is such that you’re sanguine behavior only played in the crooks favor. By not approaching the manager first, and by directly confronting him in the manner you did (and by creating a scene), you gave your “opponent” the best possible scenario for him to create a very strong case of reasonable doubt. The waiter has many angles to argue his case… from the excessive drinking issue to the fact that you could have been given the fakes after you left the restaurant, etc. etc. You yourself admit that you failed to check the bills at the restaurant…. hence, your case was a very weak one from the very beginning.

Had you instead returned to the restaurant and approached the Manager directly, and asked him to confront the crook in your presence about the fakes, you would have had a better chance at making the guy’s (i.e. the crook waiter’s) life a lot harder. With a complaint directed to the Manager, you would have put the crook on the spot and on the radar screen of management in a stronger way, and given him a much much weaker case to argue the veracity of your accusations. Furthermore, you would have given the manager the opportunity to make a judgment call and perhaps even give you the benefit of the doubt and refund your money. However, your actions did not allow this to even be a possibility.

I’m not sure I agree with those on this thread that say that AR$20 or US$20 is not worth making a fuss about…. I think it’s about principle. What happened to you was wrong, and the crook deserves to get fired. But the way you handled things was also dead wrong.

Hi Everyone - greetings semi-rural Georgia.

Thanks for all your input -both good and bad. I appreciate that some of you may have handled things differently, but I'm not the type of person to write letters to management when I get lousy service - I usually (and quietly) give a few choice words to whomever is giving me trouble, and get on with my life. I also am not a really belligerent person, but when confronted with such obvious asshattery, I chose to convey a warning to the jerks in question as well as my fellow diners. If I prevented another customer from being scammed, I think my actions were warranted. I would like to mention that my remarks about escalating my physicality were made (mostly) in jest. :)

As I said before, I fell for the scam... shame on me. I knew the score before I went back there and that my odds of evening it were slim.

Now that I am a little more lucid with my previous illness now in retreat, let me fill in some details that may change some (but not all) minds.

Like I said, I returned to the restaurant immediately after I made the discovery of the fraud. There is no doubt as to where the bogus bills came from.

However, given the way they ring up bills at El Establo, I recognized that the waiter may not have been complicit in the scam. He may have been palmed off by the cashier, or someone else who made the change.

Let me preface this with some background: I dined alone that night, as my girlfriend had returned to Toronto two days prior and I was set to retun the next day. As I was at the table next to the staircase and the serving station where this guy was based, we had opportunity to talk on several occasions in fluent English (thank God, since my Spanish stinks). You name it, we joked about it. Sports, weather, politics and traffic on the nines. When I say fluent, I mean this guy could conjugate like the Queen herself. No problem communicating, except when my coughing fits interrupted us. I hadn't spoken to anyone all day, and I enjoyed the company. Ironically, I was a little standoffish with him at first, looking for his angle, but he won me over. He was very smooth.

About my state of mind: I got a wicked head cold starting on Sunday (anyone else?) and was pretty light-headed by the time I arrived at El Establo. I was laid up all day in my hotel room and had been taking lots of Benadryl. I wasn't loopy or anything, but my reaction time was definitely delayed and it would have been evident to anyone around me, what with my heavy blinking and such. I brought a paperback with me to dinner and I was reading every sentence three times over.

So having established a casual rapport with this guy, I felt comfortable getting right to he point with him - as in, "what the f*** is this s***?"

I figure he'll either own up, feign embarassment, or stonewall - you know what he did.

My previously verbose pal suddenly has lost his touch for English, and also appears to be at a loss to understand why this gringo is waving fake money in his face. All he was missing was his altar boy's uniform.

So as we are already in the little nook in the dining room next to the cashier, I lay the bills on the till and ask that guy, who is not decked out like Fred Astaire and I assume to be a manager of some sort, if they came from him (in English).

No dice; he might not understand English, but he sees what's going on - he simply shrugs his shoulders and smiles, then just shakes his head. He makes a point of not touching the bills, as if contacting them would implicate him.

At this point, I'm 100% sure the waiter is crooked, and I'm pretty sure that the cashier, if he is not in on the scam, doesn't particularly care if the waiters are taking a little side action. I can tell the two of them have this act down to a science.

Bottom line, I don't think these asshats give a damn about a potential stern letter to the Buenos Aires Better Business Bureau. They know tomorrow I'll be back in Peoria or Knoxville or Calgary and the next turista mark will come through the door.

Seeing this obvious stonewall for what it was, I decided not to beat my head against the proverbial wall any further, so I made a loud exit. I still fail to see the problem with that. I didn't hit the guy (although I wanted to) and I didn't violate the liberty or well-being of anyone present. I don't care what the staff there think of me, and if nothing else, if the customers think I'm a "raving lunatic" at least I'm a lunatic with a backbone. In retrospact, my tirade lasted mayble 15 seconds - hardly enough to ruin anyone's evening, but enough to send a message.

Like Alex said, this for me is about principle. I realize some may think my action was undignified - hell, it was undignified - but slinking away licking my wounds while this jerk was having an after-work drink on me would be more undignified. Whether that gels with your personal calculus is up to you...

Again, this is not how I conduct my business day-to-day. I'm Canadian for chrissakes, I've got "non-confrontation" built into my DNA. But this was way beyond the pale.

I stand by my actions.

Closed for Moderator review. Uncivil, off-topic, rude, and personal attack posts deleted.

ALL: in this or any other thread, the rules about personal attacks apply.

cblaisd
Senior MOderator