BRIDGEWATER — The owners of the restaurant where a waitress claimed customers left an anti-gay note in place of a tip are checking credit card records to investigate what the customers now say was only a hoax.

Dayna Morales, an openly gay waitress at Gallop Asian Bistro, set off a frenzy of Internet debate when she posted her story online. She included a photo of a receipt showing the tip space crossed out and the words "I'm sorry but I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and how you live your life" written by hand in the margin.

Morales, an ex-Marine, then promised to donate thousands of dollars in replacement tips from supporters to the Wounded Warrior Project, which supports injured military service members.

But the customers have come forward — albeit anonymously — telling NBC 4 New York they did in fact leave an $18 tip on the $93.55 bill. The customers provided NBC with a credit card statement as well as their copy of the receipt showing the tip, according to the station's report.

"The owners are doing their investigation and looking into the Visa batch credit card accounts," Byron Lapola, manager of the Gallop Asian Bistro, told NJ.com Tuesday said. "We'll release a statement once they see what's what."

Until then, he said, there would be no further statement.

The customers, a husband and wife who can be seen on the video of the NBC report only as silhouettes, have "never not left a tip when someone gave good service, and we would never leave a note like that," the wife said on the NBC report.

Morales told NBC she was certain she received no tip, and said the handwriting on the check was not hers, standing by her story, the report said. BEGIN RELATED LINKS

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She could not be reached directly by NJ.com Tuesday.

Lapola said Morales was not working at the restaurant Tuesday. When asked if she would be back working again, he said it would "depend on the owners" and the investigation.

A representative of the Wounded Warrior Project had not yet returned a call placed by NJ.com Tuesday seeking to determine whether Morales had donated the replacement "tips" sent to her, as she had pledged to do. A spokesman for the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office said he could not address whether the office was looking into the possibility those gifts were accepted under false pretenses.

As of Tuesday evening, more than 500 online comments had been made about the customers' rebuttal of Morales' story on an NJ.com post published earlier in the day. Countless more had been made on other sites and in social media.

Morales' story bears some similarity to that of a Tennessee Red Lobster waitress who claimed in September a customer scribbled the N-word on a receipt after writing "none" on a tip line. The customer later said he had never written the slur, and would sue the franchise, ABC News reports.

A Bronx lesbian couple who were so moved that they drove from New York City last week to personally deliver more than $200 in replacement tips to Morales, said Tuesday they were livid when they heard her story had been alleged to be a hoax.

Jenni Saldana told Morales at the restaurant as she delivered the money that she had felt compelled to come in person because she had just lost her best friend, an "out" Marine who died from cancer that morning.

"I'm hoping this is all some big mistake, and I'm shocked this turned out the way it did," Saldana told NJ.com Tuesday. "We're both hoping the latest is not true, but are both waiting to learn what develops."