An investigation is underway in British Columbia after allegations of fraud involving the tips collected at a Denny’s restaurant in Kamloops.

While RCMP are investigating, it appears as though hundreds of thousands of dollars may have been syphoned out of the restaurant’s digital tip system.

That’s leading to larger questions about how digital tips are collected and distributed to servers and staff when you hit that option when paying for your meal.

Executive Director of Restaurants Canada, Janick Cormier says there are two different kinds of tipping models available in order for restaurants to be compliant with the Canada Revenue Agency.

One is direct tipping, the other is controlled tipping.

She says all tips, whether given by credit card, debit card or cash, belongs to the employee. Cormier says in direct tipping, the employee gets their tips at the end of their shift, in controlled tipping, the tip payout goes with the employees’ pay on their pay cheque.