Didn't pay the bill

[ffsimstupid]

Stupidly went out with a bunch of 'friends' last night for drinks and food. They decided they weren't going to pay because they 'get away with it all the time' and essentially we're going to leave me with the bill because I was protesting. Long story short ended up follow them out ( I know so stupid). I'm the goody two shoes of the group because of my guilty conscience and as I suspect this morning I feel awful. I really want to ring the restaurant and let them know the situation and pay when they open but I'm scared this is the wrong thing to do and can land me in big trouble.

Please try not to flame me I know full well I was in the wrong and I want to fix this, please advise me what you would do.

OP well done for having a conscience and wanting to pay back the money to the restaurant.
Unfortunately you have nasty people for friends. Actions have consequences- their actions - ripping off a restaurant - may have impacted hugely on the wage of a waiter/waitress.

If you lie down with dogs , you get fleas.
Ditch the "friends"

@nettie434 because many tills have no ability to take payment with just the card details. The card needs to be physically there.

Well done OP. Any joy getting the money from your friends?

Pay your share and give them the names and addresses off the rest of them

Not RTFT but I sincerely hope this restaurant has you all on CCTV and publicly posts stills on social media.

Shocked as I am that your friends would do his, I'm even more shocked that it seems to be commonplace for staff to make up the shortfall. This is surely illegal, and certainly immoral. A business takes the profit and therefore accepts the risk. It should not be the low paid staff who cover it, that's just disgusting.

I think its almost universal that it is taken from the staff.
The restaurant owners will not be out of pocket, but the wait staff will

Shocked as I am that your friends would do his, I'm even more shocked that it seems to be commonplace for staff to make up the shortfall. This is surely illegal, and certainly immoral. A business takes the profit and therefore accepts the risk. It should not be the low paid staff who cover it, that's just disgusting.

Morality and law really aren't the same thing (thank goodness). And besides, the last few years have seen incremental moves to remove any risk of business from the "risk takers" and pass it onto their staff and customers wherever possible.

Emma the problem is that the majority of these places hire young people, often in their first ever job or a part time job to help them through education or just looking for some experience for their CV. For newbies into the working world, I think you take a bit more than someone older or with more experience.
I allowed myself to be treated like shit because I was worried if I spoke up they would say I wasn't a team player and not only might I lose my job but may struggle to work elsewhere in the city too (loads of hospo managers are friends or at least know each other).

So yes it is absolutely disgraceful but often no one will speak up, or if they do, they'll be silenced quite quickly. No one stays to face the battle, they get out while they can and vow to never go back.

I know, I remember having that happen to me and being worse off after a shift (turned out it was the manager nicking from the till, not walk outs). But that was 20 years ago and I really thought things had changed, seems not 😞

Yeah it's well shit! But as I say, no one stays to fight. It happens to so many people that we just accept its the way it is and move on

Reminds me of my "Friend" from secondary school, Knew her for years in school. She invited me out shopping with her and her sister one day and I went.

What they failed to tell me was they went out all the time to steal the stuff they wanted from the shops, I only found this out as they were running out of the shop and the police stopped me, I was arrested but later let go.

First and only time I have been arrested. Never spoke to her again.

Are you ok OP?
What did they say when you went in to pay?

@dontseemtomatter I am sorry that happened to you. How dreadful.
There but for the grace... I really could have been you. My 'friend' was similarly reckless, and I was similarly clueless as she shoplifted everywhere we went. And still it took me year to end things. I hope OP is paying attention to these stories.

@nettie434 because many tills have no ability to take payment with just the card details. The card needs to be physically there.

Well lets have a system where we have like a small safe where the card thats booked table xxx has the card there for it so if they do a runner the card gets left behind so the resturanuer can ask the debit credit card co for the customer details or the card co can contact the customer and say your cards been left etc an they collect

Or even a photo of the card destroyed when the customer pays up.

Hell the first system works at the pub we occasionaly go to, they keep the card, when you leave you go to collect your card and then pay..

because many tills have no ability to take payment with just the card details.

Thanks QuestionableMouse. Learned from yours and ProfessorSlocombe's replies that different card systems have different functionalities. I can see how a restaurant doesn't generally need a cardholder not present option whereas a hotel does to hold reservations etc. Thanks!

Justaboy Yes, as others have pointed out, hotels and car hire companies offset a provisional charge against a card. Ironically, a group of people in a restaurant can easily rack up a much larger bill than one person staying overnight in a Travel Lodge etc.

Op, it's commendable that you've woken up this morning and decided to do the right thing. Your friends sound awful, I would definitely be cutting them off for this.

Just to add, I've done waitressing as a second job for over 30 years and never have I had to personally fork out to cover the costs of walk-outs. That's awful practice, and I'm appalled that it seems to be so widespread. As another pp said, the rate of walk-outs is around two per month, but it's absorbed into the costs of the business. In effect, customers are covering the cost of these immoral, theiving scrotes who do a runner.

I waitressed in Paris years ago and had to cover walk outs. I once had a table of walk outs and I ran up the road after them with the security guy in tow brought them back and made them pay the bill. They paid it insisting that they’d already paid.
But anyway I hope it goes well today op and that they won’t call the police because after all it’s pure theft. Very sad that your friends think that this is acceptable practice.

Thinking about it, I can’t see even a Pizza Hut in London taking a group booking that size and not taking a card or deposit.

Well lets have a system where we have like a small safe where the card thats booked table xxx has the card there for it so if they do a runner the card gets left behind so the resturanuer can ask the debit credit card co for the customer details or the card co can contact the customer and say your cards been left etc an they collect
The sort of people who do this are the sort of people who would have a dodgy card. At work I get declined cards all the time. Sometimes it's genuine and the customer just needs to shuffle the money between accounts. On the other hand there are plenty who you just know won't be paying. One of my colleagues confiscated a declining card when he noticed that the name on the card was "Miss Jane Smith" (or whatever the name was) and the person trying to use it was a man.

I’m a manager in a restaurant, this happens often, sometimes on purpose, other times people genuinely make mistakes and don’t even realise they’ve done it. We never in voice the police, they wouldn’t bother with it. But I know they’d be very appreciative of you going back to pay, even though if it’s a larger chain type restaurant, your bill will have had to be cashed off at the end of the night and either go down as a loss, or come out of staff tips.

It should never come out of staff pay. Management should get a better system sorted.

@Yankeeaddict, as the manager, presumably on a somewhat higher wage than your waiting staff, has it ever occurred to you to absorb the loss from your own profits, rather than taking it from your poorly paid waiting staff?