Restaurants overcharging drunk customers?
 

Three times recently I would have been overcharged by restaurants if I hadn't been paying attention to the bill. One was a more expensive bottle of wine than the one ordered; the other two were extra entrees added onto our bill. In all three cases we had been drinking heavily during dinner. It could be coincidence but it certainly made me wonder if this is a routine practice by restaurants. I can't ever remember a time when I've looked at the bill and said, "Gee honey, they forgot to charge you for your steak".

I remember being in Mexico once, and the bill was TWICE what it was supposed to be. I complained and they changed it back...but no apologies for the attempt to steal.

In the US, I have had incidents where the waitstaff have altered the amount of tip I entered..once from 3 dollars to 13. I save all my receipts for business expsenses and had Amex rectify it. I also called the manager of the restraunt personally and the corporate office to terminate the girl.

Wayyyyyy back in my college days, my roomates and I would sometimes partake of Bob Marley's favorite herb..the small apartment would stink of it. We would order a pizza, pay cash, and the pizza guy, smelling the smell, would try to short change us on the assumption that we were messed up..which we were..but not THAT messed up!

It's a seedy thing do to and is the sign of a dishonest, struggling restraunt. If they do something like this, you can make their life more difficult by informing their CC vendors..visa, mc, amex, discover etc...and by dropping a note with local regulators about having seen vermin in there and bringing and inspection down on their heads.

Please continue to follow this thread in the Dining Buzz Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

I experienced the opposite last night at a hibachi place. They forgot to charge one of my friends for the sake she ordered. After drinking it by herself, she was pretty gone.

It is not a sign of a struggling restaurant, it is a sign of dishonest employees. I have caught employees trying to do some of these things and have not only fired them on the spot but called the police on them. I don't have that problem any more.

The employees swipe the cards themselves, and once the card is swiped, if a tip is added on, they have to manually enter that tip amount. An altered tip is not uncommon, BUT thieves are thieves and they are stupid and it is easy to catch this issue.

It is also easy for the employee to add on items they think the diner will not notice. Until the transaction is closed out, it is open game to a dishonest employee.

Absolutely true. I had this incident in London: I was at a tapas-style restaurant with a big group where they were doing a deal with all dishes for £3. The bill came, and it was just a number (not itemised). It was an awful lot more than it should have been. I ask for an itemised bill, and was given a handwritten one. I was told that "the sale isn't running tonight". I asked to speak to a manager, which she refused and threatened to call the police unless I paid. I got up, and walked straight back to the manager's office (you could see the door next to the kitchen) and knocked on the door until he came out. I explained what had happened. He came over to the table and brought the full computerised itemised bill. All the dishes had been charged at the sale price, but the waitress had added around £60 in tip to make the price up to the pre-sale price. And yes...we'd all been drinking heavily. Our meal was comped, manager apologised profusely, and last we saw was the waitress being taken back to the office by a very angry manager...

That is just obnoxiously blatant. As a diner you might not notice a few pounds surreptiously added to the bill, but very few people will miss £60, drinking or not. Greedy and stupid

When we have to pay for a congress, we can't really proof, how many drinks are ordered, .....

Agreed, it was very stupid. I guess she thought that we looked like a wealthy group who would just shrug off the fact that the sale wasn't running. Sadly...we were just law students in suits!! Trust me, we count every penny :P

Yes. When a compelling desire to overcharge arises in a waiter/waitress hungry-for money heart, it's a drunk customer who is overcharged. The world is full of various privileges. One undisputed privilege of a customer is the privilege to pay more :-)

This is truly infuriating when it happens at a place that is way overpriced to begin with.

Just take a trip to Madrid, go eat on the puerta del sol, and accept something that is not listed on the menu... Ask UVA185 how much that ham + cheese cost!

HTSC

I have had this go both ways but much more often in the overcharging category.

A few weeks ago in a restaurant in Cagnes sur Mer, France the bill arrived with the appetizers not included and only one of two bottles of wine billed. I brought it to the attention of the person brining the credit card machine and she said "Mr. jbcarioca, you never have two bottles of wine and we were so slow that it should be free anyway" It is a restaurant we often visit but that was a magnificent gesture anyway. The restaurant
http://www.palais-dasie.com/ is a very good Chinese/fusion in the French style. When they treated me so well I had to give them a plug, did I not?

Not just in Madrid. Very much the case in the NY suburbs. I'm absolutely infuriated by restaurants where the "specials" all cost at least 50% more than the main courses on the menu and the price isn't set forth anywhere. I've learned not to be embarrassed to ask anymore because of this.

Not as appalling a story as many of these, but just last weekend we went to a sports bar where beer is always $2 and well drinks always $3. I normally like wine, but ordered rum and Coke at this place for that particular reason. When the bill came, we had been charged for call drinks (Capt Morgan & Coke was on the bill), which I assuredly did not order. The $ difference was nothing to cry about (I didn't drink THAT much), which is why I just let it go, but the principle was mighty annoying. I am sure this is a common occurrence in bars.