This happened to me twice in a three month period, by the same bartender and so I find it hard to believe it’s not happening to a lot more people. It’s probably a common scam, I just wanted to let everyone know to look out for it.
At Big Time Brewery, you order all your food and drinks from the bar and are asked if you want to open a tab. Each time I was there, I opened a tab when visiting with my wife, and then after dinner and a couple of drinks, I headed to the bar to close my tab. I recognized the bartender and when you go to close your tab, she holds the mobile POS and it shows the standard 18/20/23/25% tip to enter. After entering a tip, I signed my name and she pulled the machine back. I was a little surprised by the total as I entered the tip, so I asked for a receipt. She states at that time, “You’ll get one in your email”. I wasn’t sure I believed that so I walked away and checked my email for a while, and of course did not receive a receipt, and went to the bar and asked a different bartender if I could have an itemized receipt. She printed it out, and of course at the bottom there had been added a large party auto-gratuity of 20% to the tab for my wife and I. This, on top of my 20% tip, gave them a 40% total tip on my bill.
I pointed it out to the other bartender that this was essentially stealing, and she claimed it was just put there accidentally. She then cleared out both tips and just closed my tab at that point.
I didn’t do anything about this after the first time because I believed it was a mistake, now that the same bartender did the same steps to me a second time a few months later makes me realize this is probably happening very often. Big Time has a lot of large parties in the back, so I understand adding the auto gratuity, but I don’t think they ever tell anybody when it’s added and they just tip on top. Even if we had been part of a large party, she never said there was auto 20% added. It’s also easy if you never see your receipt to add it to anyone, including unsuspecting couples like us.
I reached out to them over email to talk to an owner or someone, but they have not responded.
submitted by /u/seattledon
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