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My wife and I went to dinner to celebrate our new born daughter with some friends. It was an older couple and their 2 grown sons. We had a couple other friends join as well. So we had 8 people total.
We finished eating and the 2 sons left. They were college age and had better things to do and probably were looking for a free meal from their parents. The bill then came and the couple who was responsible for 4 people short changed the bill by 50 bucks!
What happened was no one asked for separate checks so the bill came as 1. No one felt like doing the math. One of my friends said theirs 6 people here, so let's slit it by 6. I said no since it was for 8 people, was an expensive restaurant and not everyone ordered drinks. I figured out exactly what my wife and I owed. We paid that portion.
What happened next was no one else wanted to figure out their bill. There was back and forth and the couple told my friends is what they are putting down good enough? They asked if they could more down on a debit card. The friend said its good enough and no need for the card. But the couple short changed by 50 bucks. They left before the waiter picked up the bill and my 2 friends had to pay the difference of 50 bucks. Basically they paid for 1 of the 4 people. So that's alot.
I hate to say this but i think the couple pulled a fast one by taking advantage of the chaos. No one was drunk and how hard is it to figure out a bill. Bizarre What do others think?
Last edited by jobseeker2013; 10-07-2017 at 08:19 PM..
This is a reason why I always ask for split checks. Too many people try to get over. Dividing payment by number of people present sounds all fine and dandy--especially for people who are trying to get over/lessen what they would have paid otherwise--but as one who doesn't drink or order expensive items when dining out, I will never agree to that; far too often, that would mean me paying in excess of $40 when I only ordered $15-$20 worth of food.
My wife and I went to dinner to celebrate our new born daughter with some friends. It was an older couple and their 2 grown sons. We had a couple other friends join as well. So we had 8 people total.<>What do others think?
What you should learn from this is to settle the terms before you order.
Since I often dine with a mix of drinkers and non-drinkers we ask the server to keep a separate bar tab, then split X ways. That is how we used to do it.
Nowadays the servers use a computer in most places, so keeping a bunch of separate tabs is no big deal.
A lot of establishments will charge you a service fee with that many people so you need to be clear if that covers the tips.
I'm a little confused why you thought it was your other friend's responsibility to pick up the rest of tab, and not yours, since the dinner was your celebration for your new child. But that's probably a different topic. Did you offer to reimburse them?
And why did the second couple say, "No, it's enough" and turned down the offer from the first couple of putting it on a debt card when it clearly WASN'T enough? That's bizarre. Lesson learned for them, I'm thinking.
I'm a little confused why you thought it was your other friend's responsibility to pick up the rest of tab, and not yours, since the dinner was your celebration for your new child. But that's probably a different topic. Did you offer to reimburse them?
And why did the second couple say, "No, it's enough" and turned down the offer from the first couple of putting it on a debt card when it clearly WASN'T enough? That's bizarre. Lesson learned for them, I'm thinking.
I think they said no because they didnt pay attention or just being nice. I didn't offer to pay because we didn't have the money to re-imburse them. They chose not to pay attention to the bill. One of them did not look at the bill at all because it was too dark and relied on the other to figure it out. I think it was a get together of friends celebrating not as formal as you may think. We didnt pick the place nor the time. And we didn't invite tag alongs. Plus they could get re-imbursed from the ones who actually didn't pay.
Last edited by jobseeker2013; 10-07-2017 at 09:57 PM..
Doesn’t anyone have a calculator on their phone? I also have an app that calculates the tip. I mainly use it because I like to tip fairly and more if I so choose and because I just really hate it when my friends want to tip just the opposite way. I like to pay my share and ONLY my share (unless it is understood that I am treating someone), and I want to leave the tip that I want to leave.
There shouldn’t be any disputes about what is owed by anyone since the bills are itemized. Or am I missing something?
OP said “no one else wanted to figure out their bill”. Not your problem. I wouldn’t worry about the possibility of the one couple getting one over on the other.
Everything was itemized and the tip was included because the party was big.
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