A restaurant customer refused to pay a tip after being charged an 18 percent tip.
In a post on the End Tipping Reddit forum, a customer posted his receipt in which he was charged an 18 percent tip for a meal that cost $73.94. “An 18% tip was 'voluntary' but was automatically added to my bill for 2 guests,” they wrote. “Swipe left to see the choice I made.”
Angry about the bill, the user showed in the second photo that he chose not to receive the tip and, to make matters worse, he did not tip his waiter at all. On the receipt, the restaurant revealed the tipping policy in fine print.
“Please note that an 18% gratuity has been added to your check,” the policy said. “Feel free to increase, decrease or eliminate the tip. This tip will be paid to your server, is voluntary, and is added for your convenience. Thank you for doing business!”
Below the user's post, other Redditors expressed their outrage on the user's behalf.
“People shouldn't have to 'opt out' of anything,” one person wrote. “There should be no tip line, no extra buttons to click or press, and no cashier standing there looking to see if you're tipping or not. If they want to tip, they can do so like they did just a couple of years ago. The customer simply told the cashier to add as much as tip.”
“The option to delete it is so stupid because what?!” another person commented. One user responded by saying: “So they don't force it on you, right? I mean, you can tip whatever you want… as long as it's: (a) 18%; or (b) having an awkward conversation with the server telling them to adjust or remove the tip.”
“Just add it to the menu items already,” someone else added, to which another person agreed: “Seriously, can we stop this ridiculous arithmetic test you have to do at the end of every meal and just add it to the ** *? *ing prices. Everyone is going to do it anyway, so just do that and that's it.”
“Added for your convenience. Hahaha,” another user wrote sarcastically. “Why insult your clients' intelligence like this? “I’m so fucking sick of this whole damn world,” someone else responded.
Automatic gratuities are considered service charges and not tips, according to a 2015 IRS news release. Automatic gratuities, which are typically added for large groups, do not allow customers to choose whether or not to tip, as well as the amount they want to give.
“Tips are customer-determined discretionary (optional or additional) payments that employees receive from customers,” the news release says. Automatic gratuity is often implemented to ensure staff are adequately compensated for their service.
