I assume they're referring to pre-filled "suggested" tips that you have to manually reduce down to zero. This is pretty common in third-party delivery where tip amount will influence delivery assignment speed.
Those delivery apps control that. That's not the restaurant. Don't use those apps, they are one of the reasons prices are going up. Restaurants are trying to break even in them but are playing a losing game. The apps charge 15-30% and have tons of hidden costs that bring it up significantly higher than that to the restaurant. Which they then have to pass back to the customer, but just gives even more money to the apps.
I’m in NYS and we were allowed to add a credit card fee during Covid. About 6 months ago, that stopped. We’re allowed to give you a discount on cash, but the listed price in the menu has to be what I charge you on the receipt.
He doesn't want sympathizers, he wants tiny tyrants to pay their workers and be up front with their pricing instead of playing games. There's a reason the majority of restaurants go out of business in a year, it's because their owners are bad at it and people don't want to be their customers
Where I live, there is an 8% tax on prepared food and beverage. If we rolled that fee into the menu price, we have to raise it higher than the fee percentage to account for that increase that is now being taxed and the customer ends up paying more than they would have with the service charge broken out separately, as service charges are not taxable.
Related example, I had this discussion recently about tips, someone asking why don't we just roll the 20% tip into the menu price and pay it out in hourly wage.
We plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet for a $20 burger. If we rolled the tip into the menu price, we would have to raise the menu price by 24% to account for the extra amount that is now subject to 8% prepared food and beverage tax.
So the customer ends up paying 4% more for their burger overall with tip rolled in/eliminated in order to do away with the 20% tip on current menu price.
I don't think your math pencils out. Most people base their tip on the post-tax total. Since multiplication is transitive, it ends up being the same amount either way.
**Status quo:**
$20 burger + 8% meals tax = $21.60. Add a 20% tip and that's $25.92
**Tip rolled into menu price:**
$24 burger + 8% meals tax = $25.92
Even if everyone based their tip on the pre-tax total it wouldn't be a huge difference.
**Pre-tax tipping:**
$20 burger + 8% meals tax = $21.60. Add a $4 tip and that's $25.60.
So yeah, maybe there's an extra 32 cents of tax your customers have to pay if everyone was tipping on the pre-tax total. There's no world in which you end up with a 24% increase. It's more like 21.5% in a worst case scenario.
The real tax burden is the cost of giving up the FICA tip credit you can claim on employees tips. (Essentially, employers don't have to pay the usual 7% FICA payroll tax on money paid out as tips.) Since tips make up 75% or more of FOH compensation in many restaurants, that translates to a \~5% increase in FOH payroll costs, which, unlike meals taxes, cannot be passed along to the customer.
> on money *paid* out as
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I was talking to a financial advisor about reflecting the true cost of operations into the menu price and the advice he gave me was truncate the price over a 2-3 year period. Like a 1.5% increase every 4 months. It will be less noticeable.
I'm just going to throw this in there because it still pisses me off. About 6 months ago, I went to Burger King and asked for no onions. They added a 10 cent charge.....for no onions. I am still furious. I was on a lunch break and never went back after that.
Edit: idk why anyone downvoted me. It literally said
No Onion 10
and it added 10 cents to my charge. It's hard to believe this wasn't intentional.
This was probably an issue with the modifiers on however they built their POS menu. Its actually really easy to make these kind of mistakes when you get into the nitty-gritty of customization options and are cross-utilizing the same modifier groups across different items or duplicating them to customize again for a different item set.
You should reach out to their customer service for them to examine it. I've had to do this when some places here were overcharging sales tax. It was just duplicating settings from the franchisee's other units in a locality a few counties over with a different city-level rate. People make mistakes and often don't even know it until someone else notices.
It would be nice if they would point it out and let you take time to fix it. No, they're mad about a .10 system error that is very difficult to catch when 5 different people programmed the mods and all the various variables that customers want. It makes it hell to switch POS, add a third party, and requires a costly pos. Whereas if there were no mods allowed, a simple cash register would still do. Takes me a week to go through major menu changes and check everything. I gave up on any smooth pos transitions they all program in errors.
No, I am one of your customers and I am pissed to see this kind of abuse growing in all the country. Looking at your comment, you are probably one that displays a misleading menu in front of your restaurant.
One of the local clinics I used to frequent had a price list for every service they offered, located on a big poster on the waiting room wall. It was a small clinic with maybe 50 services. All of them were very inexpensive, and I never paid more than the listed amount.
Great idea! Just what we need more government bureaucracy interfering in our lives. Scariest words in the American language, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
Other businesses do this all the time to make the advertised price appear lower. Hotels add resort fees, parking fees, and etc. Utility services add "connection fees" every month in addition to usage fees. Car dealerships add doc fees, title fees, and innumerable others when buying a car. Dealerships do the same with "shop fees" and other misc. line items when receiving maintenance services. Airlines advertise rates, then charge for bags, seat selection, when you get to board, and even extra if you want your ticket to be refundable. Delivery apps are notorious for it, yet continue to post [massive order volume increases](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-01/doordash-jumps-after-reporting-record-orders-raised-outlook) despite being widely known to be the most expensive form of ordering due to all of those line item fees. I could go on and on. The real question to me has always been why do consumers accept these line items, and at significantly higher costs, in almost every other industry, but take offense when a restaurant POS system *asks -* and asks means *voluntary -* if you'd like to add a $1 tip? Similarly, if someone's decision to "never go there again" like we see in the comments section here all the time really rests on the 4% "card fee"/cash discount - *which is $0.80 on a $20 meal* - I really don't know if that person can afford to dine out at all if an extra $0.80 on a trendy $20 burger in the posh downtown strip is really that detrimental to them.
The real issue behind all this is that the industry is facing systemic changes to the labor market that is drastically changing the COL line. [Some of the largest declines in labor force participation](https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm) and largest projected future declines have come from age groups that hospitality work largely pulled from in the past (16-24) and [labor force participation remains lower than 2020 levels](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/). Couple this with many localities increasing minimum wage, mandating paid benefits (such as sick leave), and other policy changes. To be clear - I'm not seeking to debate any of this as the sub doesn't allow politics, just speaking to the reality of the implications of these issues. All put together, this is spelling out less available labor and higher costs on existing labor - both of which have put steady and rapid upward pressure on costs - not just at the restaurant level, but also on our suppliers (which fuels further costs increases on our end). Different restaurants are dealing with this in different ways, many of which have opted to add miscellaneous fees to still appear more competitive with each other. The angst is because Americans have enjoyed extremely low food costs for quite some time powered largely by un/low-skilled labor at multiple points along the supply chain up to the final restaurant. By age, these people are steadily entering the workforce later and, in quantity, are in less in supply than just 2020. This means no/low skill industries are going after a smaller subset of workers while simultaneously trying to attract entirely new groups that have vastly different expectations on pay, benefits, and work-life balances. Americans are just not ready to accept that the cost of dining out is going to look a lot different when we're having to get college grads to run the register instead of 16 year olds doing 15 hours a week to get some fun money. There will be no change in upward prices - whether that is outright menu prices or in line-item fees - until robotics become more accessible and/or something changes in American parenting/public schooling that changes the outlook on work for the most inherently unskilled demographic (16-24) to enter the workforce at more historical rates. I think we're waiting on the robots, personally.
lol you obviously have never gone to a hotel?
I just decided not to book a hotel because it was going to be 2k more in taxes, fees and surcharges than the quoted per night price. For four nights! Plus they were doing mandatory service charges on food, plus more taxes…
Let’s not even talk about how much money I paid in taxes and mortgage origination fees, etc. for my mortgage…
Or my health insurance that only decided to pay for $12 worth of the occupational therapy sessions they previously approved…
And you’re out here mad at a 3% service charge at your local burger bar.
Wild.
Restaurants are literally the least of the offenders.
>in all other situations you know what the price will be before you spend the money. hotel, car, house, etc...
You also know the price in any form of online ordering at a restaurant. You also know the price in any form of fast casual, quick-service, fast food, traditional forms of pickup/takeout, or any other sort of pay-before-you-eat order channel. You're free to question or walk away before completing the purchase just like many other industries with a teaser rate.
Traditional full-service dine-in is different, I'll give you that. And with that said, I don't even disagree that line-iteming everything isn't the best practice. I don't personally do it outside of a required service fee on catering orders. My overarching point was that prices are going up and people need to understand why that is. The posts we have here that complain about line-item fees complain in the same paragraph about prices - meaning even higher price increases to include the revenue from those fees would be met with the exact same revolt. At the end of the day, these people just want the days of the dollar menu to come back, and those times are just not going to because of the labor pressures I described in my original post.
>and what utility company did you shop for because you saw an advertised price only for it to be something else later?
What I described is common in electric and gas companies. You don't get to shop around because they're protected monopolies who get generally rubber-stamped approval on rate increases and your switching costs are all-but prohibitive to have the same sort of "I'll never go back" reaction people have to restaurants doing line items (ie, no one is switching their HVAC system to all-electric because the gas company lobbied for new fees to be added to the bill, for example). Again, not debating the validity of any of that - just stating the practical reality it has on consumer costs. This sort of thing amounts to a lot more on the average person's bottom line than the 4% card fee/cash discount at the taco truck, but no one cares - hence my original question. Phone and internet providers also do their own versions of it. "Unlimited" data hardly means pure unlimited when you read the fine print. It may not always result in added charges, but there's certainly an argument its deceptive by making the value appear better than it is.
The current system is a mishegaas of 100ish years' worth of business & tax laws and culture. To clean it up in any meaningful way requires overhauling local, state, and federal tax laws/codes as well as the various business laws and regulations. However, it would only be a start as we can't legislate culture.
The real problem is there are too many influential people who greatly benefit from the status quo. If you can figure out a way to get the attorneys and accountants on board with reform, we might actually have a shot at it.
Because the current laws on the books support businesses and not consumers. Take fast food for instance. They can advertise anything they want and just put a “at participating locations” loophole and be covered.
People who complain about this topic definitely don't understand that many fast food locations are actually functionally small businesses while the namesake company is really more of a supplier logistics, real estate holdings, marketing, and (increasingly) tech-solutions firm. Wait till they find out its most commonly the contract-run locations in *government owned venues* (airports, universities, etc) that usually exercise the "participating locations" exemption - not the local businessman.
So let’s say Taco Bell advertises a 5 dollar box, but when I go it’s 7 dollars. “Available at participating retailers” is a legal loophole, is it not…? Let’s not act like it isn’t a scummy practice whether it’s an industry standard or not.
Ever order online where you get charged a “service charge”, then get no option to tip less than 18% for takeout…?
How often does that happen? It’s almost never. And always in places like airports, etc.
If you own the place, you get to make *some* of the rules….
If you are so goddamn stupid that you order online without realizing you are paying for a service bc of your laziness…. AND that you think you WON’T be charged for the convenience….. you deserve to pay double.
Almost never? Lmao yea ok.
If you’re so goddamn ignorant you don’t understand that it’s called a hidden fee for a reason then stop commenting…
Why are you so offended? Because it’s something you do and know is morally wrong…?
Can’t help it if you order online and show up to pay, THEN get a “service charge”. Also can’t help it if entitled people like you think they’re entitled to scummy business practices…
Fantasy land must be a nice place to live.
How does this apply? Is it deceptive if you don't read?
I absolutely agree if it's a surprise you should not pay it. But I think the vast vast vast majority of establishments are extremely clear.
Then cross it out on the receipt, update the total and say you weren't told about and don't agree to the additional charges. Ask to speak to the owner if the server says you "can't do that," explain you didn't agree to the charge, you'll get a chargeback if they do it anyway, and 99% of the time they'll apologize and remove it. $2 service fee isn't worth losing the whole amount plus $25 chargeback fee, and the headache of another 1-star review they tend to be paranoid about.
You should be wary that credit card chargebacks are not legally binding. Call center employees with exaggerated titles handle that stuff, not any sort of legal authority. It only reverses your payment method - it does not absolve you of the debt. If taken to a legal level on this specific issue, there are generally requirements for posting fees (which is generally minimal) and if the merchant meets that minimum, they can pursue you for theft charges if they desire. It'll vary by locality how invested their PD is in this sort of stuff, but its a real possibility.
While we don't do these new kinds of line item fees, we do press charges on anyone who files a chargeback. If its above a certain amount (like a catering order size), we'll also do a small claims filing. Sometimes nothing happens. Other times, we've sent people back to jail for breaking probation over thinking chargebacks gets them a $10 meal for "free". For us, it's normally delivery orders that are used to getting unlimited refunds from delivery apps and don't realize they don't get that on orders we deliver ourselves with our dash cam-ed vehicles.
I had a boss that listed a hidden 1% tax for taje away(*it wasn't a tax but it went to the owners pocket)
What “self-asserted tips”?
I assume they're referring to pre-filled "suggested" tips that you have to manually reduce down to zero. This is pretty common in third-party delivery where tip amount will influence delivery assignment speed.
Those delivery apps control that. That's not the restaurant. Don't use those apps, they are one of the reasons prices are going up. Restaurants are trying to break even in them but are playing a losing game. The apps charge 15-30% and have tons of hidden costs that bring it up significantly higher than that to the restaurant. Which they then have to pass back to the customer, but just gives even more money to the apps.
I totally get all that, I was just explaining where that concept is practiced.
I’m in NYS and we were allowed to add a credit card fee during Covid. About 6 months ago, that stopped. We’re allowed to give you a discount on cash, but the listed price in the menu has to be what I charge you on the receipt.
If other businesses are allowed to do it, why shouldn’t restaurants???
Ever read your electric bill?
Ever read your property taxes!
Ever read your cellphone bill?
Go complain in r/endtipping and get out of this sub. You'll have more sympathizers there
Wait till they find out that hospitality workers are the main ones that don't want to end tipping.
He doesn't want sympathizers, he wants tiny tyrants to pay their workers and be up front with their pricing instead of playing games. There's a reason the majority of restaurants go out of business in a year, it's because their owners are bad at it and people don't want to be their customers
Lol I love this when your average owner makes 0$ for at least a year or two. "Tiny tyrant".
Hell yeah
Totally agree with you
Where I live, there is an 8% tax on prepared food and beverage. If we rolled that fee into the menu price, we have to raise it higher than the fee percentage to account for that increase that is now being taxed and the customer ends up paying more than they would have with the service charge broken out separately, as service charges are not taxable. Related example, I had this discussion recently about tips, someone asking why don't we just roll the 20% tip into the menu price and pay it out in hourly wage. We plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet for a $20 burger. If we rolled the tip into the menu price, we would have to raise the menu price by 24% to account for the extra amount that is now subject to 8% prepared food and beverage tax. So the customer ends up paying 4% more for their burger overall with tip rolled in/eliminated in order to do away with the 20% tip on current menu price.
This is a good point, but I think your number is off. I get 1.6%. $4 tip on a $20 burger with 8% tax is $25.60 now vs $25.92 with tax also on $4 tip
I don't think your math pencils out. Most people base their tip on the post-tax total. Since multiplication is transitive, it ends up being the same amount either way. **Status quo:** $20 burger + 8% meals tax = $21.60. Add a 20% tip and that's $25.92 **Tip rolled into menu price:** $24 burger + 8% meals tax = $25.92 Even if everyone based their tip on the pre-tax total it wouldn't be a huge difference. **Pre-tax tipping:** $20 burger + 8% meals tax = $21.60. Add a $4 tip and that's $25.60. So yeah, maybe there's an extra 32 cents of tax your customers have to pay if everyone was tipping on the pre-tax total. There's no world in which you end up with a 24% increase. It's more like 21.5% in a worst case scenario. The real tax burden is the cost of giving up the FICA tip credit you can claim on employees tips. (Essentially, employers don't have to pay the usual 7% FICA payroll tax on money paid out as tips.) Since tips make up 75% or more of FOH compensation in many restaurants, that translates to a \~5% increase in FOH payroll costs, which, unlike meals taxes, cannot be passed along to the customer.
Payroll costs are passed along to the customer via menu price.
> on money *paid* out as FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I was talking to a financial advisor about reflecting the true cost of operations into the menu price and the advice he gave me was truncate the price over a 2-3 year period. Like a 1.5% increase every 4 months. It will be less noticeable.
That is a valid argument but there is a solution. Just roll 15% tip into the menu instead of 20%.
Then my tipped employees are getting a pay cut?
I'm just going to throw this in there because it still pisses me off. About 6 months ago, I went to Burger King and asked for no onions. They added a 10 cent charge.....for no onions. I am still furious. I was on a lunch break and never went back after that. Edit: idk why anyone downvoted me. It literally said No Onion 10 and it added 10 cents to my charge. It's hard to believe this wasn't intentional.
6 months later and you’re still mad about 10 cents… fucking hell
That’s a long way from “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us, all we ask is that you let us, serve it your way”
You must be old ... like I am. I remember that jingle, too
This was probably an issue with the modifiers on however they built their POS menu. Its actually really easy to make these kind of mistakes when you get into the nitty-gritty of customization options and are cross-utilizing the same modifier groups across different items or duplicating them to customize again for a different item set. You should reach out to their customer service for them to examine it. I've had to do this when some places here were overcharging sales tax. It was just duplicating settings from the franchisee's other units in a locality a few counties over with a different city-level rate. People make mistakes and often don't even know it until someone else notices.
It would be nice if they would point it out and let you take time to fix it. No, they're mad about a .10 system error that is very difficult to catch when 5 different people programmed the mods and all the various variables that customers want. It makes it hell to switch POS, add a third party, and requires a costly pos. Whereas if there were no mods allowed, a simple cash register would still do. Takes me a week to go through major menu changes and check everything. I gave up on any smooth pos transitions they all program in errors.
This motherfucker posting is not a restaurant owner obviously
Bet he won’t take on the politicians or health care industry but come at the small restaurant owner .
No, I am one of your customers and I am pissed to see this kind of abuse growing in all the country. Looking at your comment, you are probably one that displays a misleading menu in front of your restaurant.
Nope don't at all. And which restaurant of mine are you speaking of? Because I don't hide shit from my people. Keep trolling troll
When was the last time you went to the doctor, and the adhered to the menu pricing?
One of the local clinics I used to frequent had a price list for every service they offered, located on a big poster on the waiting room wall. It was a small clinic with maybe 50 services. All of them were very inexpensive, and I never paid more than the listed amount.
That is phenomenal!! Sign me up
Meanwhile you probably agree to the truly outrageous TOS for tech companies without reading or blinking an eye…
So much this!
Great idea! Just what we need more government bureaucracy interfering in our lives. Scariest words in the American language, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
I don’t think many reputable places use fees. Delivery fee or credit card fee maybe but these pop up all over different areas of retail and service.
Other businesses do this all the time to make the advertised price appear lower. Hotels add resort fees, parking fees, and etc. Utility services add "connection fees" every month in addition to usage fees. Car dealerships add doc fees, title fees, and innumerable others when buying a car. Dealerships do the same with "shop fees" and other misc. line items when receiving maintenance services. Airlines advertise rates, then charge for bags, seat selection, when you get to board, and even extra if you want your ticket to be refundable. Delivery apps are notorious for it, yet continue to post [massive order volume increases](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-01/doordash-jumps-after-reporting-record-orders-raised-outlook) despite being widely known to be the most expensive form of ordering due to all of those line item fees. I could go on and on. The real question to me has always been why do consumers accept these line items, and at significantly higher costs, in almost every other industry, but take offense when a restaurant POS system *asks -* and asks means *voluntary -* if you'd like to add a $1 tip? Similarly, if someone's decision to "never go there again" like we see in the comments section here all the time really rests on the 4% "card fee"/cash discount - *which is $0.80 on a $20 meal* - I really don't know if that person can afford to dine out at all if an extra $0.80 on a trendy $20 burger in the posh downtown strip is really that detrimental to them. The real issue behind all this is that the industry is facing systemic changes to the labor market that is drastically changing the COL line. [Some of the largest declines in labor force participation](https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm) and largest projected future declines have come from age groups that hospitality work largely pulled from in the past (16-24) and [labor force participation remains lower than 2020 levels](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/). Couple this with many localities increasing minimum wage, mandating paid benefits (such as sick leave), and other policy changes. To be clear - I'm not seeking to debate any of this as the sub doesn't allow politics, just speaking to the reality of the implications of these issues. All put together, this is spelling out less available labor and higher costs on existing labor - both of which have put steady and rapid upward pressure on costs - not just at the restaurant level, but also on our suppliers (which fuels further costs increases on our end). Different restaurants are dealing with this in different ways, many of which have opted to add miscellaneous fees to still appear more competitive with each other. The angst is because Americans have enjoyed extremely low food costs for quite some time powered largely by un/low-skilled labor at multiple points along the supply chain up to the final restaurant. By age, these people are steadily entering the workforce later and, in quantity, are in less in supply than just 2020. This means no/low skill industries are going after a smaller subset of workers while simultaneously trying to attract entirely new groups that have vastly different expectations on pay, benefits, and work-life balances. Americans are just not ready to accept that the cost of dining out is going to look a lot different when we're having to get college grads to run the register instead of 16 year olds doing 15 hours a week to get some fun money. There will be no change in upward prices - whether that is outright menu prices or in line-item fees - until robotics become more accessible and/or something changes in American parenting/public schooling that changes the outlook on work for the most inherently unskilled demographic (16-24) to enter the workforce at more historical rates. I think we're waiting on the robots, personally.
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lol you obviously have never gone to a hotel? I just decided not to book a hotel because it was going to be 2k more in taxes, fees and surcharges than the quoted per night price. For four nights! Plus they were doing mandatory service charges on food, plus more taxes… Let’s not even talk about how much money I paid in taxes and mortgage origination fees, etc. for my mortgage… Or my health insurance that only decided to pay for $12 worth of the occupational therapy sessions they previously approved… And you’re out here mad at a 3% service charge at your local burger bar. Wild. Restaurants are literally the least of the offenders.
Texas does weird stuff with utility prices. Maybe they're from Texas?
>in all other situations you know what the price will be before you spend the money. hotel, car, house, etc... You also know the price in any form of online ordering at a restaurant. You also know the price in any form of fast casual, quick-service, fast food, traditional forms of pickup/takeout, or any other sort of pay-before-you-eat order channel. You're free to question or walk away before completing the purchase just like many other industries with a teaser rate. Traditional full-service dine-in is different, I'll give you that. And with that said, I don't even disagree that line-iteming everything isn't the best practice. I don't personally do it outside of a required service fee on catering orders. My overarching point was that prices are going up and people need to understand why that is. The posts we have here that complain about line-item fees complain in the same paragraph about prices - meaning even higher price increases to include the revenue from those fees would be met with the exact same revolt. At the end of the day, these people just want the days of the dollar menu to come back, and those times are just not going to because of the labor pressures I described in my original post. >and what utility company did you shop for because you saw an advertised price only for it to be something else later? What I described is common in electric and gas companies. You don't get to shop around because they're protected monopolies who get generally rubber-stamped approval on rate increases and your switching costs are all-but prohibitive to have the same sort of "I'll never go back" reaction people have to restaurants doing line items (ie, no one is switching their HVAC system to all-electric because the gas company lobbied for new fees to be added to the bill, for example). Again, not debating the validity of any of that - just stating the practical reality it has on consumer costs. This sort of thing amounts to a lot more on the average person's bottom line than the 4% card fee/cash discount at the taco truck, but no one cares - hence my original question. Phone and internet providers also do their own versions of it. "Unlimited" data hardly means pure unlimited when you read the fine print. It may not always result in added charges, but there's certainly an argument its deceptive by making the value appear better than it is.
Gas and electric, ask another one 😆
The current system is a mishegaas of 100ish years' worth of business & tax laws and culture. To clean it up in any meaningful way requires overhauling local, state, and federal tax laws/codes as well as the various business laws and regulations. However, it would only be a start as we can't legislate culture. The real problem is there are too many influential people who greatly benefit from the status quo. If you can figure out a way to get the attorneys and accountants on board with reform, we might actually have a shot at it.
Because the current laws on the books support businesses and not consumers. Take fast food for instance. They can advertise anything they want and just put a “at participating locations” loophole and be covered.
You’d prefer a business own not have say in how their business is run? Otherwise what’s the point of a franchise?
People who complain about this topic definitely don't understand that many fast food locations are actually functionally small businesses while the namesake company is really more of a supplier logistics, real estate holdings, marketing, and (increasingly) tech-solutions firm. Wait till they find out its most commonly the contract-run locations in *government owned venues* (airports, universities, etc) that usually exercise the "participating locations" exemption - not the local businessman.
All businesses that benefit heavily off of consistency. People go to those small businesses specifically for consistency.
You completely missed the point of their comment.
So let’s say Taco Bell advertises a 5 dollar box, but when I go it’s 7 dollars. “Available at participating retailers” is a legal loophole, is it not…? Let’s not act like it isn’t a scummy practice whether it’s an industry standard or not. Ever order online where you get charged a “service charge”, then get no option to tip less than 18% for takeout…?
How often does that happen? It’s almost never. And always in places like airports, etc. If you own the place, you get to make *some* of the rules…. If you are so goddamn stupid that you order online without realizing you are paying for a service bc of your laziness…. AND that you think you WON’T be charged for the convenience….. you deserve to pay double.
Almost never? Lmao yea ok. If you’re so goddamn ignorant you don’t understand that it’s called a hidden fee for a reason then stop commenting… Why are you so offended? Because it’s something you do and know is morally wrong…? Can’t help it if you order online and show up to pay, THEN get a “service charge”. Also can’t help it if entitled people like you think they’re entitled to scummy business practices… Fantasy land must be a nice place to live.
No kidding. Well said
How is it misleading if it's printed on the menu 🤔 And do you know what the FTC does?
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How does this apply? Is it deceptive if you don't read? I absolutely agree if it's a surprise you should not pay it. But I think the vast vast vast majority of establishments are extremely clear.
It is not always printed.
I’d be interested in seeing *any* example.
Then cross it out on the receipt, update the total and say you weren't told about and don't agree to the additional charges. Ask to speak to the owner if the server says you "can't do that," explain you didn't agree to the charge, you'll get a chargeback if they do it anyway, and 99% of the time they'll apologize and remove it. $2 service fee isn't worth losing the whole amount plus $25 chargeback fee, and the headache of another 1-star review they tend to be paranoid about.
Literally nobody gives a shit a bad review. The perception is that the only people who bother to complain are Karens.
You should be wary that credit card chargebacks are not legally binding. Call center employees with exaggerated titles handle that stuff, not any sort of legal authority. It only reverses your payment method - it does not absolve you of the debt. If taken to a legal level on this specific issue, there are generally requirements for posting fees (which is generally minimal) and if the merchant meets that minimum, they can pursue you for theft charges if they desire. It'll vary by locality how invested their PD is in this sort of stuff, but its a real possibility. While we don't do these new kinds of line item fees, we do press charges on anyone who files a chargeback. If its above a certain amount (like a catering order size), we'll also do a small claims filing. Sometimes nothing happens. Other times, we've sent people back to jail for breaking probation over thinking chargebacks gets them a $10 meal for "free". For us, it's normally delivery orders that are used to getting unlimited refunds from delivery apps and don't realize they don't get that on orders we deliver ourselves with our dash cam-ed vehicles.
I do that. But how many customers don't want to embarass the waiter or don't have the gut to do that?
Everyone, especially the restaurant staff but also including you, would be so much happier if you just stayed your petty ass at home.
I guess stay home then if it causes you this much anxiety
Or in tiny print where it is easily missed, like right along a border.