Expense-A-Steak Receipt Generator Makes Fraud Easy
Midtown Manhattan steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli’s tongue-in-cheek “Expense-a-Steak” tool generates remarkably realistic-looking expense friendly receipts for whatever amount you enter into the website (supposedly the cash you dropped on their fine hunks of meat.) Is it aiding and abetting fraud? Who knows.
From the WSJ:
The Web site is just a week old but already has some 88,000 receipt downloads, according to Deacon Webster, chief creative officer at Walrus, the New York-based agency behind the campaign.
He added that the receipts, while remarkably authentic, are not intended to be passed off as the real thing. “If somebody’s letting a receipt for $3,000 worth of cyan toner through their department, then we’re the last people who’ll get in trouble.”
The WSJ also says that the restaurant, located near the offices of American Express, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, has replaced their bags with fake ones from cheaper restaurants so the free-spending bankers won’t get caught with fancy food.
The restaurants, which were not mentioned by name in the article, have sent cease-and-desist orders.
[Expense-A-Steak]
Can ‘Expense-a-Steak’ Save the Restaurant Industry? [WSJ]
Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.