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.

Tell them you want to check the bill was paid as you thought one of the others had but now not sure and worried. Pay the whole thing.

Text the friends how much they owe you.

I'm so shocked that the serving staff of some restaurants are having money taken from their wages, that's terrible. On a side note, we always tip generously and my fear is that there's a manager at the top with no morals taking it all.

What happened when you went back @ffsimstupid ?

@drinkygin @FamilyOfAliens this is not my decision - I completely disagree with it too !!!! I get 25p an hour more than waiting staff to be responsible for the whole place, so hardly considerably more than them!! i think the huge chain I work for should take the hit, not the waiting staff.

I'm also a manager at a chain and I void off the walkouts rather than take money of year olds being paid £6 an hour. We probably lose about £500 a year in walkouts so not a huge amount but some branches of my chain lose more like £1000. Going back about ten years it was common practice to cover walkouts with tips but thankfully the company no longer demands this.

I guess the reason it comes out of staff wages/tips is because otherwise waiters could pocket cash payments and claim the table didn’t pay....that scenario could easily be detected now with cctv (probably) but maybe less so in the past.

Not saying it’s right to take it from staff though...

The reason they used to give us was it was part of our job to monitor the floor to make sure this didn't happen. They said tips were a bonus and therefore if you didn't do your job properly you don't get your bonus.
We would come on shift and divi up the floor and we would put the most experienced waitress near the entrance. They were our last line of defence. Many a time have we had to leg it down the street to catch a walk out.

@WRFdidwedo

We don't allow card payments over the phone since the GDPR situation so you may have to go in.

What part of GDPR is that? I'm the GDPR coordinator for my department and would love to know more about this.

Oh not specifically because of GDPR, but only one of our card terminals accepts card payments without a cardholder present and it's rather helpfully nowhere near the external phone which means you would have to write down the card details and take them to the car machine. There was a great fear of people not destroying this information correctly so HO just told us they'd rather payments be routed through them as invoices than people being careless with customer card details.

“ my fear is that there's a manager at the top with no morals taking it all.”

There always is.

Can I just say in case it hasn't been said already, paying your bill doesn't make you a "goody two shoes" or showcase what you appear to think are your "morals" it is the bare level of human decency, exchanging a service for a payment. Don't think you're wonderful because you paid your bill. Millions of people do it every day without being astonished at the power of their moral compass.

Hear hear @lilyheather1
Couldn't agree more.

In the event an establishment is unable to verify a card is valid (most card processors allow a refundable £0.01 test transaction) the next best thing is proof of address. With that, the legal mechanism of a civil claim and enforcement is possible.

It's only when you are up against a really determined fraudster who has deliberately engineered a ghost identity that would fail. But hopefully none of the nice folk on this thread would know such a person, as they usually have a lot of criminal activity under their belt.

@lilyheather1 I agree although some on here will badge you as holier than thou so be careful .......

Wondered what happened to @ffsimstupid
Did we ever learn how much the bill was?

You are probably already all over social media. Your friends are thieves.

@WRFdidwedo unless you have a dedicated computerised secure payment route on your telephone lines that means at no point can a human gain access to the card details, you should not be taking card payments over the phone as the customer would have to give you the long card number, security code and expiry date for you to action a payment, which means in theory you could keep a note of them and enjoy an online spending spree.

@lilyheather1 yes I don't take card payments over the phone, as I said. Others above said the OP could pay over the phone and I was explaining why my own restaurant, and presumably others, don't do so. But your comment is a bit odd because although we choose not to to avoid any issues, many many companies take payments over the phone. In fact just last week I paid a holiday deposit over the phone as well as my council tax.

many many companies take payments over the phone.

Under the T&Cs of the agreement with their payment processor, which will mandate certain levels of security. If the vendor does not comply they can become liable for any fraud. The level of security required is usually related to the volume of business. And larger organisations which are not compliant have to pay more (sometimes a lot more) to be able to handle payments. (Although some crunch the numbers and pay the extra rather than upgrade their systems).

It's all available in excruciating detail from the PCI-DSS website ...

www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

Was that actually the first time you’ve been out with these friends? Because it obviously been going on along time

@ProfessorSlocombe thanks, though I'm not sure what that's got to do with any part of the discussion.

These people - do they steal old ladies’ handbags too? Pick the pockets of schoolchildren? Steal from each other’s houses when they visit? If not, what is the moral difference?

We don't allow card payments over the phone since the GDPR situation so you may have to go in.

What part of GDPR is that? I'm the GDPR coordinator for my department and would love to know more about this.

Has GD|PR done anything usefull to help anyone anywhere seems not to me!

@Yankeeaddict

You manage a restaurant and all the staff in it for £8.50 an hour?

@FamilyOfAliens unfortunately it's really not unusual for supervisors and assistant managers to earn £8.50 an hour, particularly when they are salaried and end up working longer hours. When I started as an assistant I was on £21k a year but working at least 45 hours a week contracted, plus however many more when customers decided to continue drinking until 1am, or 3 people phoned in sick so I had to breakdown the kitchen by myself. That's hospitality for you