Tip added without my permission?

[chicagodisneyfan]

wow.

DD is a waitress, she says cash tips are what the staff wants. Where she works if you tip on credit card it comes through in her pay check and she has to pay tax and social security on it. Plus she doesn;t get the money for a long time, their pay cycle is two weeks, and they are always two weeks behind, so if you credit card tip her on day one of the pay cycle she won't see the money for a month.

Wow - are you saying your daughter intentionally does NOT pay tax and social security on her cash tips???

 

[bryana]

Wow - are you saying your daughter intentionally does NOT pay tax and social security on her cash tips???

When you get cash tips, you don't pay taxes right away. The establishment should be keeping a book and at the end of the year, they are added to your W2. At least that was the way that it worked when I worked at a cafe.

 

[Reddy]

Wow - are you saying your daughter intentionally does NOT pay tax and social security on her cash tips???

when I was waitess (which wasn't long) the manger figured what I should had made in tips (% of the amount that every table I had) & that was taken out of my check - so if you are over tipped you didn't pay the extra but if you didn't get anything, you paid it (so they figure it even out)

 

[Sadie22]

wow. I always put a line through but now I will write cash tip instead. One thing I found is that some of the restaurants who participate in restaurants.com promotions require a big tip, like 18% of what the full price order would have been. Had this happen when just two of us were eating and there was only one other occupied table. And they billed us for the other table's tab (easy to spot they were drinking and we weren't). I always check my bill closely.

DD is a waitress, she says cash tips are what the staff wants. Where she works if you tip on credit card it comes through in her pay check and she has to pay tax and social security on it. Plus she doesn;t get the money for a long time, their pay cycle is two weeks, and they are always two weeks behind, so if you credit card tip her on day one of the pay cycle she won't see the money for a month.

She is supposed to be reporting all of her tips and paying taxes and Social Security on them.

 

[plummer925]

She is supposed to be reporting all of her tips and paying taxes and Social Security on them.

I do not think that is what she meant by her post...

 

[cmwade77]

when I was waitess (which wasn't long) the manger figured what I should had made in tips (% of the amount that every table I had) & that was taken out of my check - so if you are over tipped you didn't pay the extra but if you didn't get anything, you paid it (so they figure it even out)

Wow, the business would so be getting visited by the labor board in California.

They must pay a base salary of no less than minimum wage BEFORE tips and cannot deduct tips from your wages by state law.

 

[runwad]

We generally just pay in cash when we go to a restaurant just because of before this the wait staff was taking your credit card away and writing down your numbers and the CV number from the back. Now with this tip fiasco, I'll just stick to cash or not go out to eat if I have to charge it....brother, does it ever end.

 

[Eastern]

How in the world did you not notice that $70 was way too much of a tip for only 4 people??? Was there alcohol involved?

Actually the same thing happened to me at CMC a couple Easters ago. I was using a dining plan and paying cash for two extra meals. When the server explained the charges, somehow I ended up paying $70 tip instead of $35. I realized it in the bathroom just after leaving, went back, and the server gave me the excess back. (The manager had gone to talk to her; I didn't think I would get any back.)

 

[jsmith]

Guess what-its not illegal,its not stealing and writting CASH on the tip line will not prevent it. When the server,or manager, or homever runs your card,prior to you signing they run it for an ESTIMATED charge. Just like when a hotel runs it for an Estimated charge when you check in or a rental car company runs your credit card for the estimated charges when you drive the car off the lot.The funds are put on hold from your account until the paper copy that you sign is run thru the bank. The transaction for the hotel-or the car-or the meal has not actually processed-the funds are just held to pay it. Once that posts then the charge for the actual amount you sign for is what is actually debited from your account. Its a very very common practice in the resturant business for that estimated charge to include a 20 or 25 percent additional hold for tip funds-ensures that the business doesnt pay tips out in cash to the server and then have the funds not be available in the account. The only way to avoid it-always pay-and tip in cash. On of the larger draw backs of the debit/credit card system.

 

[Friendly Frog]

I am going to have to start watching the credit card bills more closely!

One strange thing I noticed on my last visit to Disney. I used a disney gift card and they would bring me a bill/receipt with no place to put the tip on it.

They would require that I sign it like a credit card and give them the gift card. That bill/cash register receipt would say "modifyied" on the bottom even though it was the first time receipt and no order changes had been made by me.

Then after I signed it, they would bring me back another identical receipt without my signature on it but with a place on it for me to write in the tip.

This happened to me at least twice while I was there.

 

[vitacura]

That is a good reminder to check those statements closely and make sure they match the receipts. I usually draw a line when I leave a tip in cash, but I may modify that to 'Cash' from now on.

 

[averysmom]

My dh travels a lot for work so he's always eating out and he has to tip on his cc because he expenses his meals. The adding extra tip happens shockingly often - at minimum once a month, sometimes more and he always catches it (or rather his assistant does), because his receipts are checked against his company card and then submitted. Zeros and threes turn into eights, the digit in front or behind to change the number. Dishonest people in the world.

 

[DisneyBill]

This is another reason why my concerned/paranoid self shall continue to pay cash when dining out or doing carry out. DW gets so frustrated with me when I insist on an ATM stop on the way to dinner, but I'm the one who has to go through the hassle when a credit card number is lifted.

However, before I went all cash, I had the opposite occur at an Olive Garden. Inadvertently I took the restaurant's copy of the credit slip when I left, leaving the customer copy on the table apparently without the gratuity added. When the charge cleared our bank it was absent the tip amount since the slip wasn't ncr material and there was no record of the tip. I then took cash in (plus some) for the waitress and apologized to the waitress in front of the manager for my screw-up.

 

[reginaastralis]

First, the information on that a percentage is often added as a "tip" when waiting for your credit card to process, but not at every restaurant.

Secondly, I worked for 14 years as a server, and I've only seen 4 servers ever add a tip in to a blank slip on a credit card slip. I'm not saying it hasn't happened more often than that, but I've personally witnessed four servers being fired for this sort of action. At the job I was at, they were immediately fired. Most of the time, the people that caught it were the customers themselves, but occasionally it was my boss going through the receipts and he found "issues" that troubled him with the tip area.

I'd personally check each time I used my credit card. I went to Sonic a couple of months back through the drive-thru, and ran my credit card on the machine out the window. Then the girl working said it didn't go through and ran my card on the inside. I immediately thought it was strange, and checked my account. Sure enough, I paid for the car in front of me and myself . The manager said they'd suspected something like this before, but they didn't have any proof. What she assumed was the car before me paid in cash and she'd pocketed it. How many people noticed two small charges typically? She was fired, and the manager suggested that I also pressed charges, which I didn't think was the thing to do.

 

[ssawka]

wow. I always put a line through but now I will write cash tip instead. One thing I found is that some of the restaurants who participate in restaurants.com promotions require a big tip, like 18% of what the full price order would have been.

You can argue the 18% (although restaurants are trying to convince us that that is the new standard), but you should always base the tip on the full price. Why should the server be penalized because you have a coupon?

 

[sk!mom]

This happened to us twice at the local Logan's Roadhouse. The first time was $3 when an $11 tip was changed to $14. We wrote it off thinking that we had written it down wrong. DH is an accountant who always reconciles so when it happened again a few months later, he pulled the receipts and visited the manager. Surprisingly, the manager really wasn't very apologetic. His attitude was kind of, "oops, we made a mistake." Which made us determined to avoid this shady restaurant.

 

[plummer925]

Guess what-its not illegal,its not stealing and writting CASH on the tip line will not prevent it. When the server,or manager, or homever runs your card,prior to you signing they run it for an ESTIMATED charge. Just like when a hotel runs it for an Estimated charge when you check in or a rental car company runs your credit card for the estimated charges when you drive the car off the lot.The funds are put on hold from your account until the paper copy that you sign is run thru the bank. The transaction for the hotel-or the car-or the meal has not actually processed-the funds are just held to pay it. Once that posts then the charge for the actual amount you sign for is what is actually debited from your account. Its a very very common practice in the resturant business for that estimated charge to include a 20 or 25 percent additional hold for tip funds-ensures that the business doesnt pay tips out in cash to the server and then have the funds not be available in the account. The only way to avoid it-always pay-and tip in cash. On of the larger draw backs of the debit/credit card system.

No one is talking about a hold - they are talking about employees adding tips when there shouldn't be. Two very different things.

 

[Halbleib1]

wow. I always put a line through but now I will write cash tip instead. One thing I found is that some of the restaurants who participate in restaurants.com promotions require a big tip, like 18% of what the full price order would have been. Had this happen when just two of us were eating and there was only one other occupied table. And they billed us for the other table's tab (easy to spot they were drinking and we weren't). I always check my bill closely.

DD is a waitress, she says cash tips are what the staff wants. Where she works if you tip on credit card it comes through in her pay check and she has to pay tax and social security on it. Plus she doesn;t get the money for a long time, their pay cycle is two weeks, and they are always two weeks behind, so if you credit card tip her on day one of the pay cycle she won't see the money for a month.

Cash tips are supposed to be claimed on your federal return each year as income.. Not claiming them is tax evasion.

 

[Halbleib1]

Wow, the business would so be getting visited by the labor board in California.

They must pay a base salary of no less than minimum wage BEFORE tips and cannot deduct tips from your wages by state law.

And federal law says that if wait staff do not make at least minimum wage after tips than the employer has to make up the difference. That is a big misconception that many have about those that receive tips. They think that if they do not receive tips that they only make a couple dollars an hour and well below min wage. The law says differently. If they do not receive what the law says they are entitled to than they need to turn the employers doing it in and not let them get away with it. Anyone that keeps working for an employer that is ripping them off only has themselves to blame if they stand by and allow it to go on.

 

[Lewisc]

You can argue the 18% (although restaurants are trying to convince us that that is the new standard), but you should always base the tip on the full price. Why should the server be penalized because you have a coupon?

wow. I always put a line through but now I will write cash tip instead. One thing I found is that some of the restaurants who participate in restaurants.com promotions require a big tip, like 18% of what the full price order would have been. Had this happen when just two of us were eating and there was only one other occupied table. And they billed us for the other table's tab (easy to spot they were drinking and we weren't). I always check my bill closely.

15-20% has been a standard tip for good service for years. Guests who use a BOGO (entertainment book) or restaurant.com promotions were always told to base their tip on the full menu price. The only thing which has changed is some restaurants are now adding an automatic tip in those circumstances.

Some things don't always make sense. Use a BOGO promotion and you tip on the full price. Use an early bird special or other type of priced fix meal promotion and you tip on what you're charged.