Watch your credit slips
 

I am a newbie here on this site, first post. We stayed in the Villages for two different times for a month and loved it. This last stay we were at a restaurant ,which will remain unnamed, in one of the town squares and used our credit card. I left a 15% tip and the total amount I made to the closest dollar amount that left no change on the end. When checking my charge online, I noticed that the server had changed the tip amount to make his tip an even dollar amount which gave himself about a 23% tip. A few days later I confronted the manager with the receipt in hand, and he became more concerned when I said "wasn't that fraud"? After that he went and checked the register and saw him shuffling thru some receipts, he then came back and gave the tip back that the server took for himself and also a coupon for two free meals. Not sure if he talked to the server involved or not, or to the other servers, but when we went back for the free meals a week later we got some very unkind stares and looks from some of the servers there. Like I'm the bad guy here for checking my receipt?? It wasn't the little extra money the server took but was the principle of the thing.

Naming the restaurant would be a service to all of us rather than a generic statement about a restaurant on the square.

I know it would but people are "sue crazy" today and may try and charge me with slander or something, that's why I left off the name of the restaurant and just the warning to check your receipts. Also by the way, this was in May before the talk about lowering the base pay of restaurant servers base wage which is a shame because if it is true that the backers of this bill are large restaurant chains...

This has happened before in TV. It was a few years ago and the manager did the same thing and a few weeks later the server was arrested. I believe this was posted on TOTV back then, I will search and update if I find it. Check this URL https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...d-theft-30549/

Thanks for checking.. gives new meaning for paying cash

I know you got the free meal coupons legitimately, but the servers and managers are accustomed to customers making up all kinds of lies in order to get a meal they have eaten taken off the bill or "comped". For many cheapskates here, there is no lie too vile for them to stoop to to get something for free.....or to have a reason to leave a tiny tip or no tip.

Here's another hint. If you are a party of 6, or more, often restaurants add the gratuity to the check. Quite often, it is left to the discretion of the server, whether to add the grat or to leave it to the customer to add whatever they want. Usually it's 18%, but that varies.

Most people know to look to see if the grat has been added, but here is how the servers can scam you....Say the check for food and drinks is $100. That makes the grat $18. The server might go ahead and add the $18, and present you a check for $118, they will then run your credit card for $118, leaving the tip line as blank. If you aren't paying attention, you think your f&b bill is $118, so you then add an apropriate tip. So, if you add about $20+, you've just given a $38 tip on a $100 dinner.

When I was in the restaurant business, we used to dock the server if we found a such a check. Invariably, when reprimanded, they "forgot".....over and over and over....until they got let go.

Now, you may really want to add more tip. I suggest that you initial the added tip and the total, if that's the case.

Obviously, this type of thing doesn't happen very often, but with several threads on credit card scams started recently, I think we'll just pay cash.

I usually write "cash" in the tip spot on the credit card receipt and leave cash on the table for the server. The servers probably prefer the cash anyway.

I always, always leave a cash tip and make sure the server actually gets it. I've seen people grab cash tips off of tables.

todays Sun has an article about a waiter adding to tips on credit cards at Margarita Republic.

Let me get this straight. Diners know that restaurants add the gratuities for dining parties of six or more. The restaurant—or the server, whoever—adds the gratuity to the bill. The diner paying the bill, knowing the gratuity policy, doesn’t bother checking the bill and ends up leaving a second (unintentional) tip, and that’s the server “scamming”?

Since restaurant credit card machines are set up to print a gratuity line routinely, as in most instances diners pay their own gratuities, it seems to me that it’s the responsibility of the person signing the credit card slip to check. Blaming the server for this is just plain wrong. Even with the gratuity charged in this way, if the dining group received exceptional service, they might indeed want to add an additional tip on that line.

However, a server doing what this thread opened with is far from the same thing. In this instance, a server who increases the amount of tip left by the restaurant patron is a completely different story and indeed sounds like theft—grounds for being fired.

Base wage for servers
 

Just last night a server at Glenview told us the reason that they were going to lower the base rate is that so many servers don't claim thier tips as wages. She pointed out that when they apply for a loan to get a car or a house they will not qualify because they did not claim enough of their tips. I know servers work hard but so do many people who have to pay taxes on their full income.

The server was a thief.

Money money
 

What folks will do for a buck!,,,

Hi Ydnar9,
Welcome to TOTV! Thank you for the "tip" about checking your receipts against your credit card statements.

As for the server who over billed your card, let's hope he/she was fired and will be prosecuted.

Wow. I have really learned a lot on this thread. I will definitely check my credit card receipt carefully. I have always checked before but now know different things to look for. Thanks so much for this valuable information.

Joaniesmom

Monday's Daily Sun had an article about a server at Margarita Republic being arrested for changing his tips. It sounds like this incident. He was reported to police by the resturaunt management.

Another source of Identity Theft to watch for when you give your credit card to server to pay. Make sure you get your own card back, there is a sceme where credit cards are replaced with expired cards belonging to someone else. The thief then has your good card.

twinklesweep,
The reason it is a scam is the "intent". Sometimes the server does it that way, on purpose, hoping the customer won't "catch" it. It often works!

Sure, the customer should check the bill, but as a customer in any establishment, the customer has the full right to expect honest interaction with the server, or whomever.

The reason for my post was to point out the need for the customer to, indeed, check the bill.

I hate to hear that there is more than one recent incident. Will certainly watch receipts in the future. Thanks for the heads up.