Would you say something if a restaurant undercharged you?

[MrsClayneCrawford]

Went out for meal with DH & mutual friend. The bill came & they hadn't charged us for my meal. I thought cha ching & said to keep stum but friend ignored me & told the waitress. I was really miffed & abit pissed off with my friend. Would you have told them or kept quiet? It was a chain not a family run place if that makes a difference.

*So you steal from Tesco’s but not from the corner shop then Bonnie?

I doubt a judge would make that distinction.*

Yes, I would apply the same principle to an independent retailer vs Tesco. In the latter case, it would not constitute theft, because I paid the amount charged. The onus is on Tesco to charge me the correct amount, it is not for me to point out that they have made a mistake when their error is in my favour.

The onus is on Tesco to charge me the correct amount, it is not for me to point out that they have made a mistake when their error is in my favour.

But you’d point it out if the error was in their favour?

That makes you a hypocrite, as well as essentially dishonest.

Why is the customer being blamed for the waiters mistake here? If the waiter/ress is being reprimanded for not including something on the customers bill at the end of the night then that is because it is their job to ensure they are charging the customer correctly, it's not the job of the customer to ensure this. So it is the fault of the server if they undercharge a customer, not the fault of the customer.

I agree it is a good thing for the customer to point out the mistake but if they don't, only the server can be blamed for not doing their job correctly in the first place. We all make mistakes yes and if we do then it's our responsibility to face the consequences of our mistakes if they are discovered later on.

Absolutely. I've not been undercharged in a restaurant as far as I know, but I have in a few shops and in each case I either let them know straight away or once when I never noticed a paypal receipt said £20 more than I'd paid until I got home but I cba to walk back, I phoned up to tell them and said I'd call past the next day, because their till would have been short at cashing up time and they'd have been worrying what had happened to the money.

I waitressed for 6 months before starting uni.. any bill mistakes ( and we had a few! Usually when items were added to the wrong table’s bills) were taken from the tips pot

Would I steal a meal?

Well, no.

@CiderBrains - yes, the mistake may be the waiter's, but I couldn't, in good conscience, let someone on minimum wage, who relies on their tips to make up their pay, cover the cost of my meal from their wages or tips.

And to be fair, I don't think the customer is being blamed for the waiter's mistake, in the OP - I think they ARE being blamed for having the attitude that it is OK to profit from that mistake, and not to care who ends up covering the cost of the 'free' meal.

Threads like this are so depressing.
Oh for a world where honesty is worth more than a tenner.

Free food is good!

@florafawna - is free food still good if you know that your poorly-paid waiter or waitress will be paying for it themselves, out of their tips?

Honestly - how is this something to be happy about?

It's like the whole "please check your change before you leave the shop because mistakes cannot rectified later."

If the customer is short changed and hasn't notice because they didn't check properly then it's their fault and they loose out. If the waiter didn't check the bill before giving it to the customer then it's the waiters fault and their loss.

How many customers don't look at bill and just pay the balance even though they've accidentally been charged twice or an offer hasn't come off correctly? Do the restaurant phone up the customer after (if they have a number from the reservation) when they realise they've over charged someone? I doubt it, they would just say they "didn't notice" and blame "human error" if the customer later contacted them.

If the waiter is docked the cost of a meal because of their mistake then they will learn very quickly to double check next time! The minimum wage thing is a cop out because plenty of workers are on minimum wage who don't even get tips to boost wages especially in the catering industry. If I made a mistake when making someone's meal who has allergies I'd expect to be reprimanded for not doing my job correctly, I wouldn't blame the customer for "not mentioning it" if it were an obvious mistake.

If I made a mistake when making someone's meal who has allergies I'd expect to be reprimanded for not doing my job correctly, I wouldn't blame the customer for "not mentioning it" if it were an obvious mistake.
Allergies can kill as im sure you know, and from your post I'm assuming you're a chef therefore will have had training regarding this in some detail as there's many allergies and the concequences can be disastrous. I can never recall a customer dying or being hospitalised because they were accidentally over or under charged. So the comparison doesn't really stand up.
People make mistakes, it's part of being human. I think it's the attitude that goes with it that annoys some people. Like if you are overcharged you somehow feel like you've been duped or mislead and if undercharged then you feel like you've 'got one over' on a company, there's some who are incredibly smug, there's no need for either, when in most cases it's the product of a genuine human error.

No I'm not a chef. The point was, you can't blame the customer for the mistake of the people who are supposed to be doing it correctly. Yes human error happens and when it does you just have to make sure it doesn't happen again by being more conscientious.

I've been overcharged several times in supermarkets when an offer hasn't come off. Yes I should check the receipt in the store but sometimes I haven't until I have got home. By the time i go again I've forgotten the 50p didn't come off or whatever so the store is quids in if every customer that day was overcharged 50p and if only day, half the people, notice.

I don’t go out for a meal unless I can afford it, and I wouldn’t dream of letting the waiting staff lose their pay. Plus, if I have eaten the meal and enjoyed it, I should pay for it - that is just basic human decency.

Is it the restaurant’s responsibility to get the bill right? Yes.

Am I a good person if I notice that they’ve made an error and I decide to profit from that error? No.

Yes. It's only ever happened to me once, but on that occasion I pointed it out and got the bill rectified.

I would, I have.

Yes of course I would and I have several times, not necessarily food, but items being under charged. But guessing by the Amount of things that get stolen at TESCO self serve my guess is societies morals are fairly low.

I normally point it out, but got to be honest I didn’t bother with 2 drinks that had been missed because they had automatically added a service charge on a table of two which was not previously mentioned or documented on the menus etc. These places aren’t all innocent. Imagine people who just throw their cars in, pay including the service charge by accident and then leave a further tip.