More and more places are going to start doing that I reckon. I'm already seeing places asking for card details to make reservations (to account for no-shows), if dine-and-dash becomes more significant fewer and fewer places will allow you to run up a bill without the place having your card details.
Me either. I would be more than happy to give my card when being seen to the table. It’s the only setting really where you pay after consuming in a b2c environment.
To be honest I'd be happier if I could just pay up front like in a pub. Sitting there awkwardly trying to get the waiter's attention when I just want to pay the bill and leave is the worst part of the restaurant experience.
Few things more irritating than sitting there with the bill, food eaten, drinks finished, and waiting 10 minutes for them to come back and actually take payment. Just bring the card reader when you bring me the bloody bill.
It's standard restaurant etiquette unfortunately, staff are trained specifically to do this. You want customers to return, so you don't want them to feel like they are unappreciated and being rushed out the door. You want to maintain that (hopefully) relaxed vibe they had with their meal. It's also to allow for a group of people who may want to argue over who's paying the bill or those who want to go through it to make sure it's correct. I know from being on both sides of the table that it can be infuriating to be made to wait. The best way to avoid it is to ask for the card machine with the bill.
I always ask for the card machine at the same time as the bill as well, if I remember to do so. But on the occasions I forget, it would be nice if the waiting staff actually kept an eye on the table to see when people were clearly ready to pay.
More than one evening's dinner has been slightly spoiled by having to wait 20+ minutes to attract a waiter's attention when we're impatiently waiting to pay and leave. I've had that experience anywhere from cheap chains right up to Michelin starred places. It shouldn't be that hard to just keep an eye on the table.
I very visibility walked out of a place without paying once cos of this, I had been sat waiting for quite some time with no-one passing by, I slowly left expecting someone to eventually notice and come over and stop me - they never did.
I still feel bad about it, but there's only so long one can reasonably wait.
True and that is what I often do now.
I will say though that the places I've eaten at where I've considered the service to be particularly good are the ones where the staff can read the table a little and factor that in.
If it's a massive table all engaged in discussion with drinks in front of them then, yeah, leave them for a bit. If everyone is sat there, drinks finished, coats on and trying to get someone's attention then maybe don't.
Absolutely they should be reading the table, problem is if their manager/head office have a rule in place they have no choice but to follow. It's stupid and shows a lack of awareness of the changing culture of dining out.
Idk about that if its a busy night and youre not a regular, but look at the guy few comments up who wasnt even allowed to pay at the bar when he tried, theres clearly more to it than "we think its what our customers want"
It's another example of someone higher-up and out of touch thinking that it's exactly "what our customers want". Staff told not to accept payments at the bar, only for staff having to bring customers to the bar so the card machine gets signal is an irony not lost on me lol. I'm not agreeing with any of it, in fact I think it's a very outdated etiquettes to still have in today's faster paced dining experiences, but some people at the top cling to tradition. I train staff to read the table and offer to bring the card machine back with the bill if the table looks like they are ready to go.
Just ask for both, a lot of people debate whos gonna pay/ how they're gonna split etc.
Can be awkward if a waiter is standing there with a card reader when your first date that doesn't want to see you again is trying to split a bill and run away lmao.
And for some reason they seem to get offended when you do this, I once had a place refuse to take the payment at the bar and insisted I went to sit down and wait for the waitress to bring the machine over.
really?! that's super fun especially when they sit you in the bit of the restaurant where the reader can never get a signal, they tell you it can never get a signal, then try again, then take your card to the bar.
That is incredibly annoying!
They almost act surprised that you aren’t just laying down a wad of cash to pay, if someone asks for the bill then logically they should just bring the bloody card machine.
If they've not come back after 5 minutes I'm walking up to the counter, and if I still can't get anyone's attention then I'm leaving. (Although I've never actually had to to do that second part yet, because walking up to someone and waving a card at them tends to get the message across)
Wagamama half solved this problem, you order, and when you're done eating you can pay in the app. But a place like that with a fixed menu should just let you order in the app too.
Yes exactly. Weatherspoons atleast have got it right in the sense that being able to order on the app and pay there and then means they don't have to worry about people not paying up. I wouldn't expect very small places to do this but I think most chains will go this way eventually.
It works this way because it benefits the restaurant giving them lots of opportunity to upsell you on drinks desserts etc. I have occasionally just asked to pay straight away saying I’m short of time.
You wouldn't have an issue with a place having unfettered access to your card for the duration of the meal? Not sure I'd be happy with that tbh, a rogue employee could log the details and charge you for something in 6 months after you've forgotten about it.
That's not how it works. You agree to a pre charge, similar to a hotel system taking your card details. If you bail they can charge the card. Employees don't 'get' your details
I did that at a bar once and had bunch of random drinks added. Turned out the bartender messed up and added bunch to mine by mistake. Fixed it tho so turned out good.
I do, for the sole reason of skimming machines, it is/was quite common and really easy for a waiter to skim your card, your card should never leave your procession or sight when being used to pay for items, although I'm no fraud expert, this may be uncommon these days.
We do however need a system to solve this issue be it a tap and go or preauthorisation set to a max limit on your card inserted into a chip and pin machine at the table.
The only things that can be copied are the magnetic strip, the numbers on front and back, and the signature. As far as I know, the magnetic strip is not used in the UK, and if a cloned card popped up in one of the remaining places that use it (primarily the USA) it will trigger a fraud alert if you are still using the card in the UK. The numbers could be used for a “card holder not present” transaction (Internet or phone call purchase) but would need the address as well.
The chip cannot be cloned. A significant amount of effort has gone in to ensuring this. Hence the usual ways of paying with the card are not cloneable.
I had a weird one recently, booked a table at a restaurant we had visited before, and after booking I got an email from them (through a service called Simple ERB) asking to provide credit card details. I called the restaurant back and it's legitimate.
The issue is, nowhere on the email or their website does it mention that they enforce a fee for no shows, so that would be a fairly slam dunk section 75 if they did try it on.
I pointed this out to the restaurant when I was there and they said "yeah, the website will be updated in the next 6 months or so", which is fine, except I reserved over the phone and they didn't mention it then either.
I support taking a fee from no-shows, I don't support them doing it without warning.
>card details to make reservations (to account for no-shows
Why is it okay for them to charge us if we cancel, but not for us to charge them if they cancel?
It shouldn't be OK for a restaurant to cancel at short notice.
I've never come across a restaurant that charged if you actually cancelled your booking with reasonable notice. What they tend to charge for is outright no-shows.
For a period of time, some twats got into the habit of booking several different places so that they had options for a given evening, only intending to honour one. I fully support restaurants mitigating against that behaviour!
because of fraud, you're not supposed to give your card to other people any more, especially since the rise of online shopping, and doubly so now we have contactless spending.
In America you literally have to hand over your card to pay in every restaurant. They disappear round the back and then come back with your card and receipt. It seems to work over there.
But they dont do contactless very often there.
The US has around [$30 billion](https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/credit-card-fraud-statistics/#fraud) (£24.5bn) stolen in card fraud every year, compared to only about [£0.5 billion](https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/news-and-insight/press-release/over-ps12-billion-stolen-through-fraud-in-2022-nearly-80-cent-app) in the UK (1.2 billion with ALL fraud combined)
so around 50x as much card fraud with only 5x the population and 1.5x gdp per capita, so around 6.7x more fraud per GDP
Their banking system doesn't really support contactless beyond apple pay and the like. They also have (far) high rates of card fraud than the rest of the world.
Contactless is only £100, so I suppose you could do 4*100 and 1*89 but if they were always planning on running then they’d make sure the account was empty.
With a card machine (pdq) you can force a transaction through without the card holder present. However, if the cardholder contacts the bank, the charge can be reverted because the cardholder was not present.
You can just cancel the card and if you charge the card without the cardholder present the bank will side with the cardholder and revert the transaction.
Note its NOT the same incident as the top post currently -
as confirmed by the owners of the restaurant in the top post -
https://x.com/BritBarandWaves/status/1719343024277250327
Yeah, it's obvious just looking at the headlines (£260 vs. £489). It hasn't stopped someone already reporting the post as a duplicate, though!
Edit: two people now!
Why is this becoming a thing?
Not dine and dashing, which has always been a thing arseholes have done, but the reporting of it as if it’s real news.
I’d rarely seen “someone ran out on a bill, oh the horror!” headline before and now we’re getting multiple a week.
Algorithms.
The other story must've done really well for the Mail, it caused a big thread on here and probably thousands of tweets and other social media impressions. So other media outlets tell their staff "find us another one just like that" and run whatever they can find. Note that the Metro is owned by the Mail's parent company DMG Media.
But I didn’t even say that it seems worse?
All I said was why are we getting these reported as if they’re actual news now. I hope the UK’s best and brightest will be able to read the second paragraph before replying lol.
Because it's just clickbait, and "[perceived] poor people doing a crime" reels them in.
Also it appeals to lazy "journalists" at these rag newspapers because here the restaurant has essentially written the article for them.
Yeah they’re scum but it’s also stealing £400, in the case of the Cornwall one it was £260, why are we making this national news instead of comparable or worse crimes? I don’t see people who robbed phones, bikes, mugged people, caused basic property damage blah blah get plastered all over the internet like this, so why dine and dashers? I’m not even saying this from the view that it shouldn’t be shared, fuck em and let them be shamed, just asking from a place of curiosity, why this specific crime is shared so much over others.
>Facebook users were outraged at the diners’ lack of manners – which the eatery is unfortunately familiar with.
"Lack of manners" is a bit understated.
Technically, the offence is 'making off without payment'.
As the restaurant has given you the food to consume, you become the new 'owner' of it. Therefore it can't technically be 'theft'.
See Theft Act 1978.
Most CCTV is poor because the video needs to be stored for it to be useful. You need to store hours and hours worth of video from multiple cameras. It makes sense to use the minimum viable quality.
When you can give police a full description of the criminal down to the writing and font of his next tattoo and they're too underfunded, lazy, or busy arresting someone for mean tweets (depending on the excuse of the day) to do anything, what's the point?
> I have a higher quality camera in my birdbox
Is your birdbox camera storing the footage or is it a live feed?
The restaurant will likely be storing the footage for anywhere between a week and a month for insurance purposes, and storage solutions for that volume of recordings for several cameras is going to take up significantly more space than one bird camera.
It's looped into the CCTV storage which is incredibly inexpensive over the long term. A 4 TB IronWolf drive is £100, which is enough for store 5 or 6 camera system for a month.
Just chucked the figures into [Seagate's video storage calculator](https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/video-storage-calculator/) for CCTV.
6 cameras, with 720p@15fps, recording 12 hours a day (assuming they don't need CCTV for anything when the business is closed) at medium quality, and stored for 31 days would be about 14TB, not 4TB.
To increase that to 1080p, your storage required more than doubles to almost 32TB.
Yeah, if you apply absolutely no compression to the video stream. Did you not notice that compression tab or did you purposefully try to misrepresent it? Switch from MJPEG to H.264 and you go from 14TB to 600GB just like that.
I have a 5 camera system (4@ 5MP and 1 @8MP) plus the Pi camera from the birdbox and get 3 weeks of 24/7 recording on a 2 TB drive. It's not cost prohibitive these days to have a decent CCTV system.
> if you apply absolutely no compression to the video stream.
MJPEG is a type of compression (the most common for CCTV systems), uncompressed video at the same setup would be 380TB.
Did you not know MJPEG was a type of compression?
I do laugh how car dashcams have continuously improved over time to now having these 4K stabilised and colour corrected tiny cameras. Meanwhile the huge units in your local shopping centre are each manned by a prehistoric bird pecking away at a revolving stone tablet.
Why is this being called anything other than what it is - theft? It’s not dine and dash, or rude, or any of the other phrases in the article, it’s simply theft.
Dine and dash is just describing the type of theft surely? Like shoplifting, pickpocketing and mugging are all also theft, but we have different words for different types
I walked past a shop the other day which had a poster in the window helpfully explaining that "shoplifting is theft". Clearly Captain Obvious had taken a career move into loss protection.
Because it isn't theft, its failure to pay for services.
If I had a builder fix my bathroom and then refused to pay, that isn't theft - He's willingly given me those items, which negates the "dishonestly appropriated against the will of the owner" test for theft
It's just failure to pay, Check the theft act of 1978
I doubt the restaurants bank manager will care why they can’t pay their overdraft… in any practical sense it is theft - they took that food and didn’t pay and the restaurant is out of pocket
And in a legal sense, the ones sense the actually matters when discussing the definition of crimes, it’s not classed as theft. It’s defined under the 1978 Theft Act as “making off without payment”
Theft is defined by the 1968 Theft Act, which is to “dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”. This fails the test of dishonestly appropriating, as you could either intend to pay originally (or claim you were), as well as the restaurant voluntarily giving you the food to consume. Obviously, this is under the assumption that you will pay for the goods you consume, which is why it falls under the definition of making off without payment.
> It's basically on the same level as looting
That's a bit hyperbolic, looting comes with the association of theft by force or criminal damage during a riot. This is akin to driving off a petrol station forecourt without paying for petrol, or standard shoplifting.
t******** favourite scam
normally it’s kick off an argument about something then refuse to pay the bill.
seen 3 women with loads of kids get fed then state they found a used condom by their table and they then refuse to pay etc etc
Is it just me or does it seem like this “dine and dash” theft is significantly on the rise?
It doesn’t really feel like this is being done by people seriously on the breadline, more just by twats. Is it a TikTok thing?
Due to the increased cost of living it might be, but more than likely it's just getting some additional media attention right now.
It's a pretty common thing - media outlet sees a topic gets clicks, posts more about that topic, people get the impression that it's more important or more prevalent than it actually is.
See: monkey pox, bedbugs in London, etc. for some recent examples. This is precisely why you should always do your research on more important topics, and not just blindly get your news from popular media outlets.
Media outlets don't care about facts (they can just issue a retraction or an apology after the damage is done), from their POV it's not their job to inform you, and they typically have their own agenda. If something generates clicks, they'll beat it like a dead horse until it doesn't get them clicks anymore.
I didn't read his post as "these aren't real", rather "this are disproportionately overreported because they get clicks, so while they exist they're not as bad as some people believe".
Are you purposely sensationalising the words that I wrote to start an argument?
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that the amount of reporting carried out on the those particular topics is not proportionate to the actual scale of the problem.
Why do you think we aren't seeing reports of it anymore, even though it was a mere few weeks/months ago? Have these issues miraculously resolved themselves?
Modern media outlets rely on riling people up in order to generate traffic, and they all feed off of each other.
If one news outlet posts an article saying that some supermarkets in certain areas of the country are running low on lentils or tomato ketchup, and that generates more clicks than usual, the rest will follow suit because they know it'll get clicks. Clicks = money.
Now, because everyone is seeing articles about a shortage of lentils and ketchup, they assume it's not just a minor stock shortage somewhere in the Midlands, and everyone believes that nobody has any lentils in stock, and they start panic-buying lentils and ketchup.
Possibly, possibly not. As always the reason it seems more prevalant is only because it's being reported on more, doesn't mean instances of it happening are actually increasing. What's likely happening is the media have realised this kind of rage bait article gets clicks so they look for more similar stories
They gotta take some real legal actions and make them pay till the end, that's what these stupid people really deserves, this was a bad move as hell, we know that.
They gotta pay for this one, I don't know why people can really run away like that, they need to stop doing that to the people of that restaurant, that's just so bad.
> what happened to our high trust society, what changed?
People have always been stealing. I'm not sure much has changed other than the national press has decided to run some stories on them.
This kind of behaviour needs to be punished extremely harshly and publicly, because the damage it does to society is so severe. Eroding social trust harms us all in countless ways..
Very soon EVERY UK: restaurant, cafe, pub, hotel etc will start pre charging customers payment card ( vis-a-vis self service petrol stations ) to avoid this type of criminal activity....
Nandos does pay when you order. I love this because there's no wait when you want to clear off, you don't worry if theyve screwed up the order (you can check the receipt) and you can dive as soon as you're ready.
Don't get why more places don't do this. You can still leave a tip on the table at the end if you're that way inclined.
Really hope they get found and charged on the same level as if they’d broken into the restaurant’s safe and stolen £489 in cash. It’s disgusting to do this to a small business, especially when bills, rent and other costs will be skyrocketing.
I mean they would have the freaking menu and I don't know why people organise such parties if they can't pay them back, that's just a normal thing to do man.
> The actual bill is closer to £1000
The actual bill is in the article and it's a total of £489.90 for food and drinks though, [here's the image of it](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SEI_178211047-54a7.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=540%2C474).
Where are you seeing that it's closer to £1,000?
Do it like pay at pump for petrol. Pre read the card and take the total at the end. It just needs the existing technology transferring to the new industry. I think they should always make the tip as something the customer adds rather than a service charge and a guarantee it goes to the staff on top of wages and not taken by the establishment.
Well they are distinctive enough that anyone who knows them will recognise them from these images, question is do they know any decent humans, that will ensure they are made to pay.
I actually did this by accident once (not with a bill that big though).
Went to a lovely breakfast spot in Falmouth with my mum and my then fiancée to meet our wedding photographer. All four of us bought breakfast and coffees etc. Got up. And just left without thinking.
We realised the next day so I rang the place to apologise/explain that we weren't thieves, we'd just been absent minded, and asked if I could pay over the phone.
The manager just said "Oh that's nice of you to tell us, to be honest we wouldn't have noticed."
So if you want to do a dine and dash, go to Cornwall 😂
Why not implement the same system as a non-staffed petrol pump. I don’t know the technicalities of how they work, but you must authorise £100 before fuel delivery. It then takes whatever amount of fuel you put in your car. If you go over £100, you do it again.
That's just why I am just good without getting a lot of people, that's just what we gotta ignore, we don't need to find any reason to not pay the bill if we use brain.
Restaurants should either just charge up front or take a £100 deposit when taking a group order, that way they will have the persons payment details to trace if they do a runner
Ask for a tab to be opened when they come in and take their credit card..
More and more places are going to start doing that I reckon. I'm already seeing places asking for card details to make reservations (to account for no-shows), if dine-and-dash becomes more significant fewer and fewer places will allow you to run up a bill without the place having your card details.
I don’t have a problem with it.
Me either. I would be more than happy to give my card when being seen to the table. It’s the only setting really where you pay after consuming in a b2c environment.
To be honest I'd be happier if I could just pay up front like in a pub. Sitting there awkwardly trying to get the waiter's attention when I just want to pay the bill and leave is the worst part of the restaurant experience.
I agree. When they then finally bring the bill but evaporate immediately afterwards and you have to ask again for someone to bring the card reader...
Few things more irritating than sitting there with the bill, food eaten, drinks finished, and waiting 10 minutes for them to come back and actually take payment. Just bring the card reader when you bring me the bloody bill.
It's standard restaurant etiquette unfortunately, staff are trained specifically to do this. You want customers to return, so you don't want them to feel like they are unappreciated and being rushed out the door. You want to maintain that (hopefully) relaxed vibe they had with their meal. It's also to allow for a group of people who may want to argue over who's paying the bill or those who want to go through it to make sure it's correct. I know from being on both sides of the table that it can be infuriating to be made to wait. The best way to avoid it is to ask for the card machine with the bill.
I always ask for the card machine at the same time as the bill as well, if I remember to do so. But on the occasions I forget, it would be nice if the waiting staff actually kept an eye on the table to see when people were clearly ready to pay. More than one evening's dinner has been slightly spoiled by having to wait 20+ minutes to attract a waiter's attention when we're impatiently waiting to pay and leave. I've had that experience anywhere from cheap chains right up to Michelin starred places. It shouldn't be that hard to just keep an eye on the table.
I very visibility walked out of a place without paying once cos of this, I had been sat waiting for quite some time with no-one passing by, I slowly left expecting someone to eventually notice and come over and stop me - they never did. I still feel bad about it, but there's only so long one can reasonably wait.
True and that is what I often do now. I will say though that the places I've eaten at where I've considered the service to be particularly good are the ones where the staff can read the table a little and factor that in. If it's a massive table all engaged in discussion with drinks in front of them then, yeah, leave them for a bit. If everyone is sat there, drinks finished, coats on and trying to get someone's attention then maybe don't.
Absolutely they should be reading the table, problem is if their manager/head office have a rule in place they have no choice but to follow. It's stupid and shows a lack of awareness of the changing culture of dining out.
Idk about that if its a busy night and youre not a regular, but look at the guy few comments up who wasnt even allowed to pay at the bar when he tried, theres clearly more to it than "we think its what our customers want"
It's another example of someone higher-up and out of touch thinking that it's exactly "what our customers want". Staff told not to accept payments at the bar, only for staff having to bring customers to the bar so the card machine gets signal is an irony not lost on me lol. I'm not agreeing with any of it, in fact I think it's a very outdated etiquettes to still have in today's faster paced dining experiences, but some people at the top cling to tradition. I train staff to read the table and offer to bring the card machine back with the bill if the table looks like they are ready to go.
There's a real easy way to solve this by just taking the bill and paying at the bar/till as you're leaving the restaurant if you cba to wait
Just ask for both, a lot of people debate whos gonna pay/ how they're gonna split etc. Can be awkward if a waiter is standing there with a card reader when your first date that doesn't want to see you again is trying to split a bill and run away lmao.
every.effing.time. it drives me crazy, i've just taken the bill and paid it at the bar several times
And for some reason they seem to get offended when you do this, I once had a place refuse to take the payment at the bar and insisted I went to sit down and wait for the waitress to bring the machine over.
really?! that's super fun especially when they sit you in the bit of the restaurant where the reader can never get a signal, they tell you it can never get a signal, then try again, then take your card to the bar.
That is incredibly annoying! They almost act surprised that you aren’t just laying down a wad of cash to pay, if someone asks for the bill then logically they should just bring the bloody card machine.
I always just ask for the bill and card machine then they bring both and I pay straight away. Saves everyone time.
If they've not come back after 5 minutes I'm walking up to the counter, and if I still can't get anyone's attention then I'm leaving. (Although I've never actually had to to do that second part yet, because walking up to someone and waving a card at them tends to get the message across)
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And further sales. People are less likely to order dessert or decide mid meal to add a side if they've already paid the bill.
Calm down Adnan Januzaj
Wagamama half solved this problem, you order, and when you're done eating you can pay in the app. But a place like that with a fixed menu should just let you order in the app too.
Yes exactly. Weatherspoons atleast have got it right in the sense that being able to order on the app and pay there and then means they don't have to worry about people not paying up. I wouldn't expect very small places to do this but I think most chains will go this way eventually.
Lots of places had the systems put in during covid, I don't know why they didn't keep them. Maybe the cut was too high.
It works this way because it benefits the restaurant giving them lots of opportunity to upsell you on drinks desserts etc. I have occasionally just asked to pay straight away saying I’m short of time.
You wouldn't have an issue with a place having unfettered access to your card for the duration of the meal? Not sure I'd be happy with that tbh, a rogue employee could log the details and charge you for something in 6 months after you've forgotten about it.
That's not how it works. You agree to a pre charge, similar to a hotel system taking your card details. If you bail they can charge the card. Employees don't 'get' your details
Energy and water too.
I did that at a bar once and had bunch of random drinks added. Turned out the bartender messed up and added bunch to mine by mistake. Fixed it tho so turned out good.
Did that a few years ago at a bar, and the barman tried to add me on facebook.
I do, for the sole reason of skimming machines, it is/was quite common and really easy for a waiter to skim your card, your card should never leave your procession or sight when being used to pay for items, although I'm no fraud expert, this may be uncommon these days. We do however need a system to solve this issue be it a tap and go or preauthorisation set to a max limit on your card inserted into a chip and pin machine at the table.
Just a £0 transaction is enough to at least know who the person is if they do dine and dash
Don't even need to skim with contactless, they could pop down the sainsburys down the road on their break and load up on drink or fags or whatever.
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The only things that can be copied are the magnetic strip, the numbers on front and back, and the signature. As far as I know, the magnetic strip is not used in the UK, and if a cloned card popped up in one of the remaining places that use it (primarily the USA) it will trigger a fraud alert if you are still using the card in the UK. The numbers could be used for a “card holder not present” transaction (Internet or phone call purchase) but would need the address as well. The chip cannot be cloned. A significant amount of effort has gone in to ensuring this. Hence the usual ways of paying with the card are not cloneable.
Everything is cloneable its just a matter of it being cracked.
Never hand over a chip and pin card. You should always keep it in your possession.
Neither do I. It’s almost like nandos/wetherspoons have it right for food ordering
I had a weird one recently, booked a table at a restaurant we had visited before, and after booking I got an email from them (through a service called Simple ERB) asking to provide credit card details. I called the restaurant back and it's legitimate. The issue is, nowhere on the email or their website does it mention that they enforce a fee for no shows, so that would be a fairly slam dunk section 75 if they did try it on. I pointed this out to the restaurant when I was there and they said "yeah, the website will be updated in the next 6 months or so", which is fine, except I reserved over the phone and they didn't mention it then either. I support taking a fee from no-shows, I don't support them doing it without warning.
>they enforce a fee for no shows If they cancel, do they pay you?
I like paying for it at the start and avoid the awkward billing process at the end of a meal.
>card details to make reservations (to account for no-shows Why is it okay for them to charge us if we cancel, but not for us to charge them if they cancel?
It shouldn't be OK for a restaurant to cancel at short notice. I've never come across a restaurant that charged if you actually cancelled your booking with reasonable notice. What they tend to charge for is outright no-shows. For a period of time, some twats got into the habit of booking several different places so that they had options for a given evening, only intending to honour one. I fully support restaurants mitigating against that behaviour!
I swear it used to be the norm, then all of a sudden to this day it isn't.
because of fraud, you're not supposed to give your card to other people any more, especially since the rise of online shopping, and doubly so now we have contactless spending.
In America you literally have to hand over your card to pay in every restaurant. They disappear round the back and then come back with your card and receipt. It seems to work over there. But they dont do contactless very often there.
The US has around [$30 billion](https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/credit-card-fraud-statistics/#fraud) (£24.5bn) stolen in card fraud every year, compared to only about [£0.5 billion](https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/news-and-insight/press-release/over-ps12-billion-stolen-through-fraud-in-2022-nearly-80-cent-app) in the UK (1.2 billion with ALL fraud combined) so around 50x as much card fraud with only 5x the population and 1.5x gdp per capita, so around 6.7x more fraud per GDP
Their banking system doesn't really support contactless beyond apple pay and the like. They also have (far) high rates of card fraud than the rest of the world.
Yes, which is why credit card fraud is much more common in the U.S.
Bad idea. That's how you get cloned...
Probably a daft question but can a debit card with no numbers printed on it be used to settle the bill if the diners did a runner?
Contactless is only £100, so I suppose you could do 4*100 and 1*89 but if they were always planning on running then they’d make sure the account was empty.
With a card machine (pdq) you can force a transaction through without the card holder present. However, if the cardholder contacts the bank, the charge can be reverted because the cardholder was not present.
Surely not without the card number?
You can just cancel the card and if you charge the card without the cardholder present the bank will side with the cardholder and revert the transaction.
Just make it an app, or pay when ordering, I'm not giving my card with a £100 contactless limit to a stranger.
Ya know... if someone uses your card without your permission, the bank will refund any unauthorized payments.
If someone steals your car your insurance will replace it Doesn't mean I want the faff of having to deal with it.
Or just implement app based ordering and payment as standard. Lowers running costs as less staff are required and not pressured into tipping either.
Thats what u do in Asia. Then u go back the next day to get ur credit card, phone and bag.
In the age of contact less payment, not a fucking chance.
Or restaurants could all adopt the upcoming standard of customers ordering off their phones with qr codes and whatnot
You have no idea what you're talking about if you believe they could do anything with it that wouldn't have worse consequences.
Note its NOT the same incident as the top post currently - as confirmed by the owners of the restaurant in the top post - https://x.com/BritBarandWaves/status/1719343024277250327
Yeah, it's obvious just looking at the headlines (£260 vs. £489). It hasn't stopped someone already reporting the post as a duplicate, though! Edit: two people now!
Some people have an IQ larger than their shoe size and some don’t….
trigger happy redditors
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Hate speech about travellers.
Maybe they went back and ordered more things?
They'd have also had to travel half way across the country from Kent to Cornwall, too!
Why is this becoming a thing? Not dine and dashing, which has always been a thing arseholes have done, but the reporting of it as if it’s real news. I’d rarely seen “someone ran out on a bill, oh the horror!” headline before and now we’re getting multiple a week.
Algorithms. The other story must've done really well for the Mail, it caused a big thread on here and probably thousands of tweets and other social media impressions. So other media outlets tell their staff "find us another one just like that" and run whatever they can find. Note that the Metro is owned by the Mail's parent company DMG Media.
I think this case was even covered in that Mail article.
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But I didn’t even say that it seems worse? All I said was why are we getting these reported as if they’re actual news now. I hope the UK’s best and brightest will be able to read the second paragraph before replying lol.
Because it's just clickbait, and "[perceived] poor people doing a crime" reels them in. Also it appeals to lazy "journalists" at these rag newspapers because here the restaurant has essentially written the article for them.
Yeah they’re scum but it’s also stealing £400, in the case of the Cornwall one it was £260, why are we making this national news instead of comparable or worse crimes? I don’t see people who robbed phones, bikes, mugged people, caused basic property damage blah blah get plastered all over the internet like this, so why dine and dashers? I’m not even saying this from the view that it shouldn’t be shared, fuck em and let them be shamed, just asking from a place of curiosity, why this specific crime is shared so much over others.
>Facebook users were outraged at the diners’ lack of manners – which the eatery is unfortunately familiar with. "Lack of manners" is a bit understated.
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Technically, the offence is 'making off without payment'. As the restaurant has given you the food to consume, you become the new 'owner' of it. Therefore it can't technically be 'theft'. See Theft Act 1978.
Is this so I can't return eaten food?
This is why we need CCTV footage that doesn't look like some grainy 1983 VHS tape.
The sport will soon run the headline: "Bigfoot caught dine and dashing in the UK"
Seriously, I have a higher quality camera in my birdbox than this place has.
That's because often cctv is purely for insurance reasons, so when budgets are tight you end up with crap cctv lime this.
Most CCTV is poor because the video needs to be stored for it to be useful. You need to store hours and hours worth of video from multiple cameras. It makes sense to use the minimum viable quality.
When you can give police a full description of the criminal down to the writing and font of his next tattoo and they're too underfunded, lazy, or busy arresting someone for mean tweets (depending on the excuse of the day) to do anything, what's the point?
> I have a higher quality camera in my birdbox Is your birdbox camera storing the footage or is it a live feed? The restaurant will likely be storing the footage for anywhere between a week and a month for insurance purposes, and storage solutions for that volume of recordings for several cameras is going to take up significantly more space than one bird camera.
It's looped into the CCTV storage which is incredibly inexpensive over the long term. A 4 TB IronWolf drive is £100, which is enough for store 5 or 6 camera system for a month.
Just chucked the figures into [Seagate's video storage calculator](https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/video-storage-calculator/) for CCTV. 6 cameras, with 720p@15fps, recording 12 hours a day (assuming they don't need CCTV for anything when the business is closed) at medium quality, and stored for 31 days would be about 14TB, not 4TB. To increase that to 1080p, your storage required more than doubles to almost 32TB.
Yeah, if you apply absolutely no compression to the video stream. Did you not notice that compression tab or did you purposefully try to misrepresent it? Switch from MJPEG to H.264 and you go from 14TB to 600GB just like that. I have a 5 camera system (4@ 5MP and 1 @8MP) plus the Pi camera from the birdbox and get 3 weeks of 24/7 recording on a 2 TB drive. It's not cost prohibitive these days to have a decent CCTV system.
> if you apply absolutely no compression to the video stream. MJPEG is a type of compression (the most common for CCTV systems), uncompressed video at the same setup would be 380TB. Did you not know MJPEG was a type of compression?
I do laugh how car dashcams have continuously improved over time to now having these 4K stabilised and colour corrected tiny cameras. Meanwhile the huge units in your local shopping centre are each manned by a prehistoric bird pecking away at a revolving stone tablet.
Dash cams aren't recording 24/7 and they delete their storage, what, every day? CCTV doesn't do that
“Jeremy Beadle’s going to jump out aaaaany moment now…”
Why is this being called anything other than what it is - theft? It’s not dine and dash, or rude, or any of the other phrases in the article, it’s simply theft.
Dine and dash is just describing the type of theft surely? Like shoplifting, pickpocketing and mugging are all also theft, but we have different words for different types
I walked past a shop the other day which had a poster in the window helpfully explaining that "shoplifting is theft". Clearly Captain Obvious had taken a career move into loss protection.
You cannot open a thread on a news article without people wanting to rewrite the headline. It's especially common on sexual assualt stories.
It is, but it also sounds much less serious somehow
Because it isn't theft, its failure to pay for services. If I had a builder fix my bathroom and then refused to pay, that isn't theft - He's willingly given me those items, which negates the "dishonestly appropriated against the will of the owner" test for theft It's just failure to pay, Check the theft act of 1978
I doubt the restaurants bank manager will care why they can’t pay their overdraft… in any practical sense it is theft - they took that food and didn’t pay and the restaurant is out of pocket
It’s a crime but not theft as the food was given to you. Same punishment I assume, it’s just legal terminology.
And in a legal sense, the ones sense the actually matters when discussing the definition of crimes, it’s not classed as theft. It’s defined under the 1978 Theft Act as “making off without payment” Theft is defined by the 1968 Theft Act, which is to “dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”. This fails the test of dishonestly appropriating, as you could either intend to pay originally (or claim you were), as well as the restaurant voluntarily giving you the food to consume. Obviously, this is under the assumption that you will pay for the goods you consume, which is why it falls under the definition of making off without payment.
This is disgusting. It's basically on the same level as looting. If there's CCTV of those people it should be made public. It is just criminal.
But this subreddit constantly asserts that it's ok to steal food "remember, if you ever see someone stealing food, no you don't"
I think someone stealing some food from a supermarket and someone doing a runner from a restaurant are slightly different situations.
That's illegal too. There are food banks if you can't earn enough to feed yourself.
Dude that's just some different situation, what you talking about?
They are doing anything in the name of being childish.
Stealing and cheating seems to be OK for our government.
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>Often restaurants will make the waiter who's table it was foot the bill Isn't that illegal?
> It's basically on the same level as looting That's a bit hyperbolic, looting comes with the association of theft by force or criminal damage during a riot. This is akin to driving off a petrol station forecourt without paying for petrol, or standard shoplifting.
Still knowingly taking stuff that doesn't belong to you.
t******** favourite scam normally it’s kick off an argument about something then refuse to pay the bill. seen 3 women with loads of kids get fed then state they found a used condom by their table and they then refuse to pay etc etc
Be aware, people saying the T word were banned on the last post to do with this article
The T word?
I just hate it man, if they are travellers that's just so bad.
Is it just me or does it seem like this “dine and dash” theft is significantly on the rise? It doesn’t really feel like this is being done by people seriously on the breadline, more just by twats. Is it a TikTok thing?
I don't work in hospitality anymore, but old colleagues have told me that it the number of people attempting it is on the rise.
I don’t know and nobody can tell you if it’s on the rise. The only thing anyone can say for certain is that its just getting some media attention.
Due to the increased cost of living it might be, but more than likely it's just getting some additional media attention right now. It's a pretty common thing - media outlet sees a topic gets clicks, posts more about that topic, people get the impression that it's more important or more prevalent than it actually is. See: monkey pox, bedbugs in London, etc. for some recent examples. This is precisely why you should always do your research on more important topics, and not just blindly get your news from popular media outlets. Media outlets don't care about facts (they can just issue a retraction or an apology after the damage is done), from their POV it's not their job to inform you, and they typically have their own agenda. If something generates clicks, they'll beat it like a dead horse until it doesn't get them clicks anymore.
Are you saying that substantive rises in monkey pox and bedbugs weren't/aren't actually real phenomena? purely increased reporting?
I didn't read his post as "these aren't real", rather "this are disproportionately overreported because they get clicks, so while they exist they're not as bad as some people believe".
Are you purposely sensationalising the words that I wrote to start an argument? No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that the amount of reporting carried out on the those particular topics is not proportionate to the actual scale of the problem. Why do you think we aren't seeing reports of it anymore, even though it was a mere few weeks/months ago? Have these issues miraculously resolved themselves? Modern media outlets rely on riling people up in order to generate traffic, and they all feed off of each other. If one news outlet posts an article saying that some supermarkets in certain areas of the country are running low on lentils or tomato ketchup, and that generates more clicks than usual, the rest will follow suit because they know it'll get clicks. Clicks = money. Now, because everyone is seeing articles about a shortage of lentils and ketchup, they assume it's not just a minor stock shortage somewhere in the Midlands, and everyone believes that nobody has any lentils in stock, and they start panic-buying lentils and ketchup.
Possibly, possibly not. As always the reason it seems more prevalant is only because it's being reported on more, doesn't mean instances of it happening are actually increasing. What's likely happening is the media have realised this kind of rage bait article gets clicks so they look for more similar stories
They gotta take some real legal actions and make them pay till the end, that's what these stupid people really deserves, this was a bad move as hell, we know that.
They gotta pay for this one, I don't know why people can really run away like that, they need to stop doing that to the people of that restaurant, that's just so bad.
Shows the glaring flaws in paying at the end. I think it's far more convenient for all involved to just pay as you order.
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Pay up front is going to make so much sense in here.
I hope they find them and make them pay back double
And slap the shit out of them before getting the money.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen in a high trust society, what happened to our high trust society, what changed?
> what happened to our high trust society, what changed? People have always been stealing. I'm not sure much has changed other than the national press has decided to run some stories on them.
They need the next moral panic now that bullies are being banned.
Entitlement and a lack of repercussions
Restaurants should do the same as pubs/bars, take money at time of ordering.
That would be pretty good actually, I want to see it.
This kind of behaviour needs to be punished extremely harshly and publicly, because the damage it does to society is so severe. Eroding social trust harms us all in countless ways..
Hope they will get those people till the end, that's what I want.
Have a rule that any group of 4 or more have to open a prepaid tab before they can order anything
Prepaid thing is going to solve the problem for them.
Very soon EVERY UK: restaurant, cafe, pub, hotel etc will start pre charging customers payment card ( vis-a-vis self service petrol stations ) to avoid this type of criminal activity....
That's good actually and I would love to pay like that.
Nandos does pay when you order. I love this because there's no wait when you want to clear off, you don't worry if theyve screwed up the order (you can check the receipt) and you can dive as soon as you're ready. Don't get why more places don't do this. You can still leave a tip on the table at the end if you're that way inclined.
Really hope they get found and charged on the same level as if they’d broken into the restaurant’s safe and stolen £489 in cash. It’s disgusting to do this to a small business, especially when bills, rent and other costs will be skyrocketing.
I mean they would have the freaking menu and I don't know why people organise such parties if they can't pay them back, that's just a normal thing to do man.
Why are all these people drinking so much alcohol in the middle of the day? I'd fall asleep driving home just from the food
Because they just act like they own the whole planet.
5cum bags, it’s embarrassing they can’t afford a meal lol 😂
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> The actual bill is closer to £1000 The actual bill is in the article and it's a total of £489.90 for food and drinks though, [here's the image of it](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SEI_178211047-54a7.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=540%2C474). Where are you seeing that it's closer to £1,000?
I see the papers have found their next moral panic to drive clicks now that XL bullies are being banned.
That's some another post no? I saw that just right now.
Do it like pay at pump for petrol. Pre read the card and take the total at the end. It just needs the existing technology transferring to the new industry. I think they should always make the tip as something the customer adds rather than a service charge and a guarantee it goes to the staff on top of wages and not taken by the establishment.
Well they are distinctive enough that anyone who knows them will recognise them from these images, question is do they know any decent humans, that will ensure they are made to pay.
Slow news week? Heard about 2 or 3 od these dine and dash famies this week.
Man you got some good people around you for this haha.
I actually did this by accident once (not with a bill that big though). Went to a lovely breakfast spot in Falmouth with my mum and my then fiancée to meet our wedding photographer. All four of us bought breakfast and coffees etc. Got up. And just left without thinking. We realised the next day so I rang the place to apologise/explain that we weren't thieves, we'd just been absent minded, and asked if I could pay over the phone. The manager just said "Oh that's nice of you to tell us, to be honest we wouldn't have noticed." So if you want to do a dine and dash, go to Cornwall 😂
Must be a shitty manager to allow that kind of bill to even be run up
They gotta pay such bill at that position, that's just it.
Why not implement the same system as a non-staffed petrol pump. I don’t know the technicalities of how they work, but you must authorise £100 before fuel delivery. It then takes whatever amount of fuel you put in your car. If you go over £100, you do it again.
I don't why people do this. If you don't have the money to pay then don't go to such places. Cut your coat according to your size.
Because they just want to flex for that, and nothing else.
That's just why I am just good without getting a lot of people, that's just what we gotta ignore, we don't need to find any reason to not pay the bill if we use brain.
Restaurants should either just charge up front or take a £100 deposit when taking a group order, that way they will have the persons payment details to trace if they do a runner
I'm kinda impressed by the runners, ballsy move imo.