The Habit Burger Grill & Automatic Tip Charge
 

Wondering how you guys feel about my experience today.

I went to lunch with a friend at The Habit Burger Grill today. While waiting for my to-go order, my friend started looking at my receipt and noticed that they charged me for a "staff Tip". He questioned me as to why I left a tip and I said I had not. In fact, I gave my credit card to the cashier and never saw the transaction (wasn't looking) and they never asked me anything.

Although $4.19 is not a lot of money, I find it outrageous that they would add a tip to my order without even asking me, not to mention it was a to-go order.

I didn't say anything at the time as there was now a line and so I decided to go another route - I cancelled the entire transaction with my credit card company and then filed a complaint with The Habit and explained that I have cancelled the transaction.

Any comments?

Vern


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How can you not have any sauce on a burger? Thats what I want to know. But seriously, a an automatic tip at a fast food place is BS.

That is bogus. Well done on the response.

(...and yes, I'm another X-er getting AARP propaganda recently)

So, there's an assumed 1/6, or ~13%, tip added to the gross. If it were me, I'd probably eat it (heh) and not return, but deep down I'd love to push the issue.

IDK how to claw ourselves back to reality, but the "tip" concept is getting out of hand.

If management decided that the register-jockey is a tipped position, as in paid pennies to make it up in tips, that's just stupid. That's an hourly job and should be paid accordingly. Like as with lodging, piling on tips/charges/fees to make things look "cheaper" is nearly a fraud.

And, of course, I'll be a good little sheep and drop a buck for my self-served drip coffee and my self-grabbed banana.

I'm surprised the CC accepted the cancellation. This won't go well.

I don't disagree with the complaint.

We should look into this. Is the base wage the rate they pay any benefits and worker's comp on?

You were charged a 16.25% tip on a to-go order, and you weren't told about it?

WTF? I generally tip and tip pretty well (I tended bar for several years when I was younger). I even usually tip on to-go orders and may have tipped that much on an order that size. But I want the tip to be my choice OR they should have their practice of automatically charging a tip stated.

It could be a thing that they do or it could also be something that the person checking you out does because most folks don't notice and it pads their pay.

I think TidyBuoy missed this part of the order:

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I'm not a fan of automatically calculated tips, but I usually leave something less than the typical 15-20%. Cancelling the whole bill and getting a free lunch is more inappropriate, IMO. I suspect if you asked The Habit to refund your $4.19 they would comply. I'll bet they dispute the charge cancellation.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I looked up The Habit and shockingly there is one relatively close to me, maybe 20 minutes away.

The burgers look great on the website, are they good?

On the charge, that's pretty douchey of them. I wouldn't go so far as to cancel the cc but I would have called the restaurant and expressed dissatisfaction. And I'm one who tips in the 20% to 100% range. Being nice about it, you could have gotten an apology and a free meal, you already got charged for the education so might as well take a burger and don't come back. Or ask the cashier to ring it up without the tip. It always pays to be nice.

It's a way for the chain to pay workers more without raising menu prices. Sneaky...

Looks like Greed-flation plus a bonus stroke in the cornhole.

Next time I'm in this situation, I think I'll take folding money equal to double the size of the auto-tip out of my wallet and make a show out of putting it right back in.

Unfortunately for you, the Habit is now off limits. May or may not be important, but....there it is.

Yeah, but all of their prices have gone up. WE keep this siht up, no onw will be eating out and it will be the death of restaurants. I complained about this some time ago. We are now charged for tip before service is provided.

Get this, there's a column in some restaurants that charge a 20% service fee and that isn't tip. Tips are expected on top of that. Now that's 40% and I hear some of these places will include tips if its more then 4 people not 6 like the days of old. Happened to us at a Korean joint. 4 of us walked out of there with a 130.00 bill and 52 bucks was just that service and tips.

I never look at bills but the total number and pay it but wife caught it so we question them. They say, its just that, service for their staff and it is done all over the area. I stiffed them on the 20% tip. They can kiss my ass since I still have to cook my own food (or not).

Tipping is out of control. It starts at 22, 28 and 32% at those credit card payment devices. Yet, they are getting a bump in pay at 22 hourly, soon to be 25 if the left politicians have their way. Now tell me you can't live off that? If not, then learn a skill and do plumbing or something.

I have a running gag with a waiter I like at a good restaurant. I clean my plate and when he stops by to clear the table I say "There was a hair in my food. Could you comp the meal please?"

It's deceitful at best and telephony (ie federal) banking fraud at worst.
You did the right thing.

You did the right thing, Vern.

Ball is now in their court whether to reach out and offer a free meal on them for the misunderstanding.

That's how it works.......

Imagine if every company charged 40% above advertised price?

This too..

I'm super curious if the charge was actually automatic or if it was the person that "rang up" the charge figuring "I'll do this 20x per day, and 19 of them will never notice.

Before I cancelled the charge, I'd have called and/or gone into the restaurant to talk to the manager. You did eat the food, so cancelling the charge is kind of messed up, especially if it was the employee doing something that they shouldn't have. (I give it a 50/50 on that).

Either way, I'd go back and say "I'll pay for the food, but I'm not paying your automatically added tip" (If that was something that I was worried about).

I wonder if there is a small sign somewhere near (or behind) the register advising that the tip is automatic???

I think that registering a complaint with the credit card company and creating a stop payment is the best thing to do. The burger place will now have to take time to protest the complaint and this will expose them for illegal practices. If you want a company to understand how you feel then hit them in the wallet.

The cashier should've mentioned the charge before adding the tip to the bill so I agree with the reverse charge. At some point you will probably have to pay for the meal but maybe they'll learn something.

Having said that... A while ago I went to a restaurant with my GF. I paid using my credit car and a few days later noticed that charge hadn't appeared on my bill. I then checked the receipt & only then did I notice that the payment hadn't gone through (communication error). So I called the restaurant, explained what had happened and paid over the phone. The bill was about $160 total.

They didn't know anything about me so I had the option of doing nothing but that would have been dishonest IMO (even though it was their mistake).

Fast Food workers in California are now paid a minimum wage of $20/hour