Diner Receives Wrong Credit Card After Meal, Goes on Birthday Shopping Spree

By Bay City News Service

A woman who dined at a Newark seafood restaurant on her birthday and was handed the wrong credit card by the waitress at the end of her meal was arrested after she took the card and headed to a nearby mall on Sunday evening, police said.

Jheline Demesa, 22, of San Leandro, ate dinner at Ray's Crab Shack at 5989 Mowry Ave., where the waitress mistakenly gave her a credit card from an adjacent table, police said.

Instead of returning the card, Demesa allegedly left the restaurant with it, police said.

The real cardholder tried to cancel the credit card a short time later but learned that transactions had been made on it at the NewPark Mall across the street, Newark police Cmdr. Mike Carroll said.

The victim notified police about the incident at 6:20 p.m., Carroll said.

The restaurant owner managed to find an image of Demesa captured by a surveillance camera inside the eatery and gave it to the victim, who went to the mall to look for her, Carroll said.

The victim and mall security located Demesa then notified police, Carroll said.

Officers arrested Demesa shortly after 8 p.m. on suspicion of commercial burglary and credit card fraud, Carroll said.

Demesa was booked into the Santa Rita Jail, police said.