Giving tips in a restaurant is the most normal thing in the world, but math can be a pain sometimes. Let’s say you want to tip your server ten percent, maybe fifteen or even twenty percent, but don’t want to the math by yourself in your head.
Luckily, most of the time you’ll find a suggested gratuity based on these percentages at the bottom of your receipt, but it turns out those suggested tips are sometimes quite misleading.
The way the suggested gratuity works is fairly simple. Of the total amount you need to pay for your food and drinks, a couple of percentages are calculated and displayed at the bottom. If you’ve just had a $50 dinner, for example, the suggested gratuity for a 20% tip would be $10. You’ve undoubtedly already seen it yourself at the bottom of your check, and there’s not much to argue with that calculation.
Things get iffier, however, when you ask to split the bill. A lot of places allow you to split the bill, but the suggested gratuity of these split bills is considerably higher than you’d expect. If you don’t double check the numbers, you’re in for a nasty surprise.
The math used here is – to say the least – extremely questionable.
Often restaurants don’t account for these split tabs and calculate the suggested gratuity based on the check for the entire table. In short, if you’re having dinner with two and both people tip, you’re actually tipping double the amount you thought you would.
The Cheesecake Factory and Pappadeaux are just a couple restaurants where this flawed calculation of the suggested gratuity is used. A Twitter user noticed the incorrect tip suggestion and engaged in a Twitter discussion with the official Pappadeaux account, and plenty of other complaints from other customers started pouring in.
Wow @Pappadeaux . How dumb do you think your customers are? pic.twitter.com/FQN2RzMzJW
— Rachea Muse (@Dersha719) February 9, 2017
Thank you for the feedback!Suggested gratuity is based on the check total & not split payments. We regret any confusion. – AG
— Pappadeaux (@Pappadeaux) February 10, 2017
A lawsuit is now being filed against The Cheesecake Factory, by a person who had a bill of $38.50 with suggested gratuity rates of $11.50 up to $16.94. The percentages on the receipt showed 15% and 22% for these two numbers respectively, but a simple calculation shows us that those percentages are in fact 30% and 44% percent, double than the amount expected.
The man left a tip of $15.40 thinking he’d tipped 20%, while in fact, he tipped 40 percent of his bill. Before he engaged in the lawsuit, the man tried to contact the management of The Cheesecake Factory, but they claim it’s not an error and didn’t reimburse him for his costs.
@olivegarden how does this math work? pic.twitter.com/Am0bda5BId
— logan ott (@ott_logan) July 16, 2017
Even though the mathematical calculation for the tips is sometimes incorrect and downright deceiving, many think the lawsuit won’t hold because tips are given in full to the servers, not the company itself. Another remark is that the suggested gratuity is just that, a suggestion and not an obligation.
We’re curious to see how this lawsuit will end, but until then, it might be worth double-checking your bill.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
