BBC News, Alastair
Leithead, Los Angeles, 21 February 2014
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Stories
A secretive
syndicate of super-rich diners have started a trend of leaving lottery-winning
tips for bar staff, waiters and waitresses across the US. The lucky recipients
are thrilled at the windfall, but is this another sign of the growing chasm
between the rich and everyone else in America?
Scribbling
the phrase "Tips for Jesus" alongside outrageous gratuities on credit
card receipts, the trend - presumably among the super-rich - has set the
internet abuzz with speculation over who the ringleader might be.
Pictures of
many grinning faces and evidence of their windfalls have been posted on Twitter
and Instagram, where #TipsForJesus is not only trending but is unsurprisingly
attracting a lot of "likes".
More than
$130,000 (£78,027) worth of tips are said to have been left in the six months
since the mystery handouts began.
Undercover
benefactors
The rich
and mysterious tipper or group of tippers have been leaving giant gratuities in
a dozen cities across the US and Mexico, but recently the service staff of Los
Angeles have been cashing in.
Just last
week a waiter at a top Italian restaurant in LA picked up a $6,000 gratuity on
a $900 dinner bill, and a fast food server was given a $100 for a $4 milkshake.
Two
waitresses at an iconic Sunset Boulevard strip club, Jumbo's Clown Room, shared
$2,000 in tips on a $272 bill.
But the
undercover benefactors have also been operating in New York, Arizona, San
Francisco and Palo Alto, and it's there where many people think the secret to
the lavish spending lies - a Silicon Valley billionaire.
Some
insider magazines have gone as far as to name former PayPal vice-president Jack
Selby as the mystery money man, but he's keeping quiet and those responsible
remain out of the public eye.
And
apparently "Tips for Jesus" has nothing to do with religion.
Widening
wealth gap
The
ringleader asked to keep his anonymity in exchange for an interview with the
San Francisco Magazine.
"The
movement we started is intended to be agnostic," he is quoted as saying,
suggesting he can't remember exactly how it all began, other than it being last
September after a college football game in Michigan.
A $3,000
tip on an $87.98 tab, with a photograph posted to Instagram, and ever since
then a flurry of local media interest has followed news of the latest big
gratuity.
The
ringleader has "been fortunate" in life, the magazine says, adding he
and his friends had been big tippers for years - just not this big.
Rubber
stamps have even been made, and there's a possibility copy-cat tipping is going
on - something welcomed by those lucky enough to share in the peculiar
redistribution of wealth.
Tipping is
part of culture in the US, where there are traditionally low wages for serving
staff, but this is a curious form of luck-based philanthropy.
It's a
reminder, perhaps, of the widening wealth gap between the super-rich and the
rest across America.
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