Customer refuses to tip after being charged 18 per cent gratuity

‘Seriously, can we stop this ridiculous arithmetic test you have to do at the end of every meal,’ user writes

A restaurant customer refused to pay a tip after being charged with 18 per cent gratuity.

In a post to the End Tipping Reddit forum, a customer posted their receipt in which they were charged a gratuity of 18 per cent for a meal that cost $73.94. “An 18% gratuity was ‘voluntary’ yet automatically added to my bill for 2 guests,” they wrote. “Swipe left to see the choice I made.”

Angry over the bill, the user showed in the second photo that they opted out of the gratuity, and top it off, did not tip their server whatsoever. On the receipt, the restaurant disclosed the gratuity policy in fine print.

“Please note that an 18% gratuity has been added to your check,” the policy read. “Please feel free to increase, decrease or remove the gratuity. This gratuity will be paid to your server, is voluntary and added for your convenience. Thank you for your business!”

Below the user’s post, fellow Redditors expressed their outrage on the user’s behalf.

“People shouldn’t have to ‘opt out’ of anything,” one person wrote. “There should be no tip line, extra buttons to click on or push, and no cashier standing there watching if you are tipping or not. If they want to tip, they can do it like it was just a couple of years ago. The customer simply told the cashier to add so much for a tip.”

“The option to remove it is so stupid because what?!” another person commented. One user replied, saying: “So it’s not forced on you, right? I mean, you can tip what you want...as long as it’s: (a) 18%; or (b) having an awkward conversation with the server telling them to adjust or remove the tip.”

“Just add it to the menu items already,” someone else added, to which another person agreed: “Seriously, can we stop this ridiculous arithmetic test you have to do at the end of every meal and just add it to the ****ing prices. Y’all do anyway so just do that and be done.”

“Added for your convenience. Lolol,” another user wrote sarcastically. “Like why even insult your customers intelligence like that? ****ing sick of this whole f*****g world,” someone else responded.

Automatic gratuities are considered service charges and not tips, according to a 2015 IRS news release. Ordinarily added for large groups, automatic gratuities don’t allow customers to choose whether or not they want to tip as well as the amount they would like to tip.

“Tips are discretionary (optional or extra) payments determined by a customer that employees receive from customers,” the news release says. Oftentimes, automatic gratuity is put in place to ensure the staff gets properly compensated for their service.