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Original poster

Tight friends taking my tip to cover their meal costs

315 replies

alid117 · 11/03/2018 20:58

Just been out for a meal with group of friends & some of their friends for a shared birthday. Lovely evening all agreed at start just to pay for what we have to eat and drink as some driving and some not - quite organised. Four out of the 14 of us worked out our share plus £5 tip added on each (great service from staff) then pasted on the receipt down to next lot. At the end heard one of the girls go to the waiter ‘sorry it’s not a huge tip’ and when asked how much had they left was told just £6!!! WTF!!! I was literally gagged by friend who didn’t want a scene...CF alert!

OP posts:
AtSea1979 · 11/03/2018 23:07

I usually always pay the bill and then when the change comes back on the plate, add the tip then.

emmyrose2000 · 11/03/2018 23:22

At least one member of the group is a thief. There's no way I'd stay quiet about this. I'd send around a group post via
messenger/email/whatever asking what happened to rest of the tip that X number of you put in.

Things like this make me so glad that I don't live in a tipping culture.

Allthewaves · 11/03/2018 23:25

We always do tip at the end. Any chance someone who was drinking alcohol didn't cover their drinks?

Loobyloomicles · 11/03/2018 23:47

I hate big group meals due to this kind of stuff. I once went out for a close friend's 21st. It was a posh-ish restaurant with a set menu so everyone should have put in the same amount. But at the end, we were over £80 down (not including service charge). We didn't want to make a scene as didn't want our friend's birthday to be ruined by finding out that some of her other friends were thieving bitches, so two of us (who hadn't even been drinking alcohol!) covered it. This was over twenty years ago and it still irritates me that people could be so brazen!

Original poster
alid117 · 12/03/2018 03:38

Spoken to some of the group on messenger group chat who I know but half group I didn’t know (they aren’t on this chat as not friends) and have put out my feelings of disgust on there of the tip money we had contributed had not been given to the waiting staff....wait for this...someone owned up that ‘someone’ not them ‘had thought that £65 was too big a tip when they had counted it and has got it stashed away for us all as a starting drinks kitty for next time we all go out’ OMG!!

OP posts:
Original poster
alid117 · 12/03/2018 03:41

No there wasn’t a service charge on top (I checked)...

OP posts:
Original poster
alid117 · 12/03/2018 03:52

Up with DD so finally got chance to catch up on thread - so I sent out my disgust at that and want the intended tip money back for the waiting staff not stashed in someone’s purse! Person who has it isn’t a friend...I didn’t say say anything at the time as wasn’t making a scene for friend’s whose birthday it was as she was on edge with us all mixing & meeting - can see why now! Never again

OP posts:
ChasedByBees · 12/03/2018 04:12

So they took some money given by others to someone else for themselves. Yeah that’s pretty bad.

Mummyoflittledragon · 12/03/2018 04:13

But you won’t all go out as a group. Cheeky bitch. And I bet the cash will be forgotten and pocketed. 😡

FlyingMonkeys · 12/03/2018 04:26

I'd not let it drop why should the CF benefit from everyone else's nice gesture to the server. Even if they didn't want to tip it's some brass neck nicking everyone else's cash Angry

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 12/03/2018 04:34

Atrocious behaviour! Who the fuck do they think they are to decide what's "too big" for a tip?

Some places automatically add on a 15% service charge for groups over 10 anyway - for 15 people, £65 is not that much, it's still less than £5 per person! - very VERY wrong of that person to pocket the money Angry

PyongyangKipperbang · 12/03/2018 04:49

Sadly very common. Usually done by someone who has to pay by card so takes the cash to the till ("its no bother, the waitresses are busy, I'll just take it over") and then pays whatever the cash doesnt cover on their card so the server ends up with nothing and usually the CF ends up with a free dinner and cash in their pocket.

Posted about this before.......Happened to a colleague of mine once who should have had about £40 from a table of 16. They were a regular family booking, every 3 months or so and Billy Big Bollocks was always acting the big generous host. As it happened there was a slight miscount at the till (she says, not sure I believe her Wink) She deliberately went to the opposite end of the table from Billy and said that there was change. "Oh thats for you" was the cheerful reply. She put down the plate with the 20p piece on it and the receipt.

It was fucking carnage! Not least because several people knew he had done it before but hadnt wanted to make a fuss. Billy was forced to repay the tip, plus extra on top and he never came again :o

gingergenius · 12/03/2018 05:12

@emmyrose2000 I've never been anywhere that you don't tip waiters. UK is not a massively tip-friendly place but waiters is the one profession that I'd say was fairly universal for tipping? Wondering where you are that doesn't have a tip culture (genuine question - thought tipping at restaurants was fairly universal?)

Aridane · 12/03/2018 06:25

No , some countries you don’t tip - at most you just leave Small change

Aridane · 12/03/2018 06:25

Unbelievable cheek of self-styled kitty gatherer

notsohippychick · 12/03/2018 06:31

OMG! It gets worse!!!

So they stashed it away?? Highly unlikely! They have stolen it, pure and simple.

That’s cheeky fuckery of the highest order!

youngnomore · 12/03/2018 06:41

Blatant stealing.

mumonashoestring · 12/03/2018 06:43

So basically they've nicked the tip, been caught out and come up with a really terrible excuse? Well at least you've got a cast iron excuse not to go out for a meal with them again!

Particularly as it sounds like it's not a group that would always socialise together so how could they possibly have assumed you'd all be included next time there was a night out?

Nope, thievery and a quick coverup job.

littlebillie · 12/03/2018 06:44

Disgusting

EachandEveryone · 12/03/2018 06:49

Id ask for it back and take it into the restaurant. How do the other tippers feel?

TheTab · 12/03/2018 06:50

That £65 will never be seen again, and if it is you can guarantee it will be on a night out with the people you don't know and aren't all invited to.

Surelyyoudontmeanthat · 12/03/2018 06:59

I wonder if this is why some restaurants add a compulsory service charge for groups of more than, say, 6 people? Never really understood this before, but I suppose there is so much more scope for the tips being snaffled by one person when it's a large group.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 12/03/2018 06:59

gingergenius - I can tell you one country where you don't tip, and that's Australia! No tip is expected. I found this very disconcerting when I first moved over here and pretty much couldn't help myself anyway - but our local restaurant, that we eat at every month, has actually told me that I shouldn't leave extra. (It is rather expensive, and the owner is lovely).

Unlike a bar in the USA, that just pocketed my change as a tip! Unbelievable, that was - I wasn't given any choice at all, just lost the whole amount I gave them!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 12/03/2018 07:00

As in - I handed over a (e.g.) $5 note for a $4 drink and got no change.

Arapaima · 12/03/2018 07:01

Next time you go out with these folk, pay the exact amount and leave the tip on the table separately after everyone else has settled up.