Family members who steal

[DarrenX]

Here's a new one for me I wasn't expecting.

My fiancee and I are in the process of starting up a salon. We've purchased an existing salon including various inventory (makeup/hair products, etc).

The salon will open in two weeks- recently we've had my fiancee's family over to check it out. When her mother came to the salon, she commented on some makeup she liked.

Long story short, my fiancee is 99% sure her mother took about $70 worth of product from the salon. Obviously $70 isn't going to make or break us, but WTF?? Any ideas on how to handle this one?

Note a few things:

My fiancee has had issues with her mother in the past. She knows if she confronts her, her mother will deny she took them, and blow up at the accusation.

To make things much more interesting, her mother is supposed to be working at the salon.

Her mother is under the false impression we're rich. While we do have a nice house and nice things, we've worked hard to achieve them and have the bills to back them up.

She has a vendetta against "big, faceless corporations", and regularly finds loopholes and writes letters to acquire free products. We also know she views her daughter as a "rich, stuck up snob."- at least that's what she tells her grandson (my fiancee's son) behind her back.

Beyond the obvious answers (not having her work in the salon, cutting ties with her mother)- realistically this will not happen. Thoughts? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]