Look Before You Leap

I was amused when I came accross Yahoo!'s story on its front-page rolling news ticker about the wealthy banker who tipped exactly one percent at his meal.

Just when you may have thought the ongoing battle between the 99% and the 1% was dying down, it may have been reignited. A wealthy banker left a $1.33 tip on a $133 lunch at the True Food Kitchen restaurant in Newport Beach, California.

To add insult to injury the word "tip" was circled on the receipt, and the banker wrote "get a real job" on the bill. The picture of the receipt was taken and uploaded to the blog Future Ex-Banker by a person who was dining with the anonymous banker. As expected, the blog received a lot of attention and has now been taken down. The author of the blog wrote, "mention the 99% in my boss' presence and feel his wrath. So proudly does he wear his 1% badge of honor that he tips exactly 1% every time he feels the server doesn't sufficiently bow down to his holiness."

 I something about the story didn't sit right, but it wasn't entirely impossible for someone to pull a stunt like that.

And then the news came out: the poor guy was framed. The receipt was photoshopped.

Whoops. Apparently Yahoo! got so caught up in the whole 1% finally getting exposed for the lousy scumbags they really were they forgot to fact check their story.

In a half-hearted apology disguised as an "update," Yahoo! reported after thousands of readers posted comments and links to The Smoking Gun story about the hoax.

After contacting the restaurant, its spokesperson Jami Reagan told us the receipt was Photoshopped, and they have the original receipt to prove it. Trending Now has received the original copy of the receipt, and we can confirm that it was in fact digitally altered. Reagan said the reason that the issue was not corrected quicker is because the corporate offices were closed over the weekend.

The original receipt does not contain the tip "Get a real job." Also, the real bill was for $33.54, not $133.54, and the tip given was $7, not $1.33.

The blog that originally posted the receipt, Future Ex-Banker, was taken down Friday as well. True Food Kitchen also says that the receipt was not altered by anyone on their staff, adding that they would never post any guest's personal information.

 Dear Yahoo!, real journalists fact check their stories before they run them, especially if they are put forth by bitter, vindictive employees.