MILTON, Del. - Delaware State Police have begun an investigation into a former employee of The Nook in Milton.
Owner Dina Escamillia reviewed receipts that she said are proof many of her customers being over charged up to $30 or $40 per bill.
Since last week, Escamilla said she has found about 12 cases of one particular employee incorrectly processing payments.
"We already had by then concerns about the server. She was giving away stuff, she was not charging properly. So that was the basis that we used to terminate the employee." said Escamillia.
Escamilla believes more than $1,500 was stolen, enough to charge the server with a felony. She tells me that servers do not have access to card information so that this will not be a prolonged issue.
Escamilla said reputation means everything to small businesses like The Nook
but some neighbors tell us they are very forgiving.
Heather Halliburton who works beside The Nook said, "I'm not going to hold it against them. They did the right thing, you know the owner's have no control over their employees unfortunately."
Some said they are even more likely to go now because of the incident.
"My initial reaction was one of respect, that they brought it out to the community's attention immediately and we intend to continue supporting them. We respect them even more now than we did before." said Gail Carpenter who lives in Paynter's Mill.
Delaware State Police said fraud to this extent is not common, "In this instance, it's so significant and we don't exactly know how many victims there are but we know that there's multiple victims that this warranted a call to the police." said Senior Corporal Leonard DeMalto.
Escamilla said they will be pressing charges Escamilla urges all victims to come forward so that she may prosecute. DSP said this is a process that could take about a year.
Escamilla said to bring a copy of your receipt or bank statement along with the card you used for a refund if a discrepancy is found from your visit.