Beer man charges Dolphins fans $724 for two beers
The way the 0-4 Miami Dolphins have played this year has fans reaching for a beer or two, but those beers are not supposed to cost $724.
The eye-popping charge shocked one fan, leading to the arrest of a beer vendor for running a credit card scam at the game.
Fans are often willing to pay a premium for food and beverage at sporting events, but this was an obscene charge just begging to be noticed.
Nathan Collier, a beer vendor at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, used a personal card reader rather than the standard credit card machine to swipe the astronomical fee for two adult beverages. Collier, who had worked events at the stadium for one year for a third-party distributor, was allegedly attempting to run a scam and was charged with grand theft in Miami. He was released on $10,000 bail.
The cost of the two beers should have run less than $20. The scam didn’t exactly require Hercule Poirot to crack.
The fan who purchased the two beers received an alert from his credit card company about the purchase. Tracking down the vendor was made easier by the fact that Collier’s name showed up on the charge.
Collier was fired from the distribution company that employed him following his arrest.
The $724 pricetag could have landed the fan five bottles of Dom Perignon 2009. Or for an especially good time, he could have passed 18 bottles of Courvoisier cognac around the section at Hard Rock Stadium to make watching the Dolphins a bit more bearable and still have a few dollars left over.