Harford County sheriff's deputies are looking for a man they say is responsible for using fake bills at county businesses twice in October.
It happened on October 22, around 8:13 p.m., at a Chipotle in the unit block of Bel Air South Parkway. The same man was seen at the Bill Bateman's off Pulaski Highway in Havre de Grace on October 30th.
Lisa Baumgartner says she was duped for dollars.
She's made a living at the Bill Bateman's Bistro in the Swan Creek Village Center. Last week she ran into a man who got one, or eighty, over on her.
"For a small business like ours, it makes an impact. It absolutely makes an impact. Our owner is out of that and it's out of his pocket, so unfortunately when you're a small business $80 is a lot," Baumgartner said.
So when Harford County sheriff's investigators saw the surveillance photo, they quickly linked this man to a counterfeit bill scam eight days earlier.
This time at a Bel Air Chipotle.
"He got into a conversation, a heated conversation, with one of the employees who then talked to a manager who came out and actually decided they were going to go ahead and do those exchanges," Major Will Davis said.
In both cases, the man used small bills that looked real -- a new scam to investigators and businesses.
"It's sort of dark in here. When you take them back to the kitchen you can see some differences, but out here it looked...it looked good," Baumgartner said.
But when she went to check the money with her counterfeit marker, she knew she'd been had. A valuable and costly lesson.
"He was so friendly, so personable, but -- we have to look out for our best interests," she said.
Anyone with information on the crime should call the Harford County Sheriff's Office for more information.
