Punny Money has a neat, simple trick for protecting yourself from restaurant tip fraud, which is when a waiter will change the numbers on your credit card receipt in order to increase his tip. The best way to prevent it is to match all your monthly receipts to your statement, but you can use this simple checksum technique to scan a statement and quickly spot any suspicious transactions without referring to your receipts.
Figure your tip as you normally would, then adjust it up or down just enough so that when you total the bill with the tip, the last digit in the total is the same as the sum of all the digits to the left of the decimal. Here are some examples of totals that have had checksummed tips added (and be sure to read the original post for more details if you’re confused).
It won’t protect you 100%, especially if your waiter happens to know the trick and is willing to put the work into changing the receipt in a way that will keep the checksum valid. But it’s a good way to add an extra layer of protection against this sort of theft. In fact, we imagine you could create your own checksum rule if you don’t want to use one that’s made its way around the blogosphere.
“Fight Thieving Restaurant Servers With Checksum Tips” [Punny via Boingboing]
(Photo: Getty)
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@IFoughtThePope-ThePopeWon: Where the hell do you work? I worked at Peter Piper (closed now), and Nantucket Inn, and barely made enough to support my alcoholism, lol. Of course with rent being around $2K a month for a basement of a house, and gas being double the price of anywhere else in the nation, is it any wonder?
@ceejeemcbeegee: No kidding. Would’ve been less offensive if they just didn’t pay us at all.
While the topic is hot– this is the place to ask. Servers and waitpersons: If I call in an order from a restaurant, and pick it up myself, is a tip expected?
I’ve always been confused about that. So sometimes I do tip a buck or two, and sometimes I don’t. Depends on the place, whether I’m feeling generous, whether I’m using cash/charge, etc.
What’s the final word on pick-up orders?
@dirtymoney: Plus my understanding is that this kind of fraud can result in a chargeback of the ENTIRE bill from a credit card company. So when someone on the wait staff is committing fraud, they are potentially opening their employer up to losing the money for the entire bill. Seems pretty dumb to me when it’s so easy to get caught (there is a paper trail).
I put an x or write cash in the tip line when leaving a tip on the table, because a restaurant lost me as a customer for leaving a zero.
I ate at a former favorite restaurant, put a zero in the tip line, and left $8 or so on the table (almost 20% and more than the waitress really deserved as I had to flag down a busboy twice for more water–she was too busy flirting with the bartender). When the charge showed up it was about $10 more than I had signed for. Apparently, DESPITE my leaving a cash tip on the table, the waitress claimed I had not tipped her at all, so she added a “1″ onto my zero to give herself a $10 tip (plus the $8 she picked up off the table).
I spoke with the manager who didn’t seem concerned that I had left a tip on the table and didn’t authorize the $10 tip added to the bill, so I did a chargeback and haven’t gone back to the restaurant since.
I always take the customer copy home with me, marked with the same tip amount as the store copy. Waiters usually do this when you leave both copies on the table, as there is no way for you to prove to your CC company that you left X amount of dollars for your tip.
Or write a big X for the tip, add the original price to the Total box and then leave a cash tip on the table. This helps your waiter/waitress more since most restaurants now charge the waiter/waitress a few % of their CC tips to offset the Visa/MC/Discover/Amex fee that they charge the restaurants(anywhere from 3.25% to 6%).
I had a waiter who gave us unacceptibly lousy service (food was cold, attitude, we told him we were in a hurry to catch a flight and he ignored us, etc) so I gave him a tip that reflected this. (and no, I didn’t stiff him, I tipped about 10% instead of my usual 20%).
He changed the tip amount on the card. I called the restaurant and raised hell with the manager. The waiter was fired, and he damn well should have been. What waiters are doing when they do that is no different then going through a wallet and stealing money. Good riddence.
What do you all think about what Luby’s is now doing? For those of you who are not familiar with Luby’s, it is a cafeteria chain. I go through the line and order my own food and carry it on a tray to my table. They now have a ‘waitstaff’ who go around to the tables and ask if you need a straw (I never take the straw – I’m a bit too old for one of those) and is everything ok. THEN they ask how much I want to tip the so-called waitstaff as you pay your bill at the register on the way out. A tip – and for what exactly? I have no problem tipping anywhere else, but tipping because someone offers me a straw and inquires if I have had a good day? Would you or would you not tip for this? Sometimes I will tip for this, sometimes not.
Or you could just write the total of your bill with the Tip on the receipt you keep. Since if you actaully balance your checkbook or keep your receipts that’ have a paper trail.
@Chris Walters:
There’s no way to justify tip fraud, but you did anyway…
ATTN SERVICE INDUSTRY EMPOLYEES:
You are not entitled a tip, it’s not the consumers fault you agreed to work for sub-standard wages on the chance you would make it up in tips for your *cough* “stellar service”.
A tip is a gratuity for good service, which means it’s earned not implied.
I tip fairly well, when I am served fairly well. If I have a waiter who ignores me, they get a small tip if any. If I get a waiter who does their job and provides a service, than they get tipped well.
And for those who say this has never happened, either a) you don’t go out very often, b) pay only in cash, or c) it has happened to you and you didn’t catch it.
I have caught it several times, and in fact most buisnesses could care less, even when confronted with proof.
I have found the best method is to write large easily determined numbers with lots of right angles when available and putting the $ right in front of the first digit leaving no room for rewrites.
If it’s a place I was messed with before on tip totals, I also write it out as mentioned earlier. If I feel like it’s more than likely I’m gonna get hit somewhere I plan ahead and bring cash or put a big fat 0 with a line through it and write no tip below then tip with cash.
I pay both the restaurant bill and tip in cash so I don’t have to worry about it later. Besides, cash is good for Where’s George.
For those of you who use American Express when dining out, look at your account online. I remember that for most of the places where it’s an option to leave a tip, you can click on a little + symbol next to that particular transaction to expand it, and it’ll break down your total and tip individually. Not sure if it does this all the time, but I thought it came in handy.
@Snakeophelia:
Did they actually charge your card three times, or just put in the request three times? Because that’s another old trick we used to do. If your customer is a total jerk, on some computer systems, you can repeatedly scan the card until you max out the card with verifications. That way the jerk will get stranded on the way home when he can’t buy any gas or they can’t buy drinks at the next bar they go to. The card is only really charged once later when you complete the transaction.
@karry: That’s a pretty good idea! Also, most restaurants use black or blue pens…I’ve usually got a purple or a red pen with me, I think this might make a good amount of sense. It doesn’t muck with their system of input either, so no one should get pissy. And if they do, gee, gotta wonder why…
This is one of those things that, to me, is not worth the time or effort of worrying about. The risk or potential damage to me is not high enough to justify the extra effort of spending time adding checksum digits, not to mention the emotional consequences of living my life as if everyone is out to screw me.
In other words, I’d rather run the risk of having someone steal a few bucks from me than have to be a receipt-keeping digit-adding anal-retentive d-bag.
Easier way: Write the tip amount on YOUR copy of the receipt also. Save it and compare once the charge posts on your statement.
My parents (generous tippers) took me to Blackies, on a $150 tab, my parents tipped about $30. The waitress changed it to $80.
My parents caught the attempt and informed the restaurant. Turns out the girl had been doing it for quite a few months, and she was let go immediately.
If you are waitstaff looking to steal, the best place to do it is at restaurants that serve mostly businesspeople on expense accounts. Many of them don’t ever see the monthly statement and some don’t have to present receipts.
@Brad2723: That is easier, but then I also have to keep track of receipts from day to day. Restaurants should install swipe machines like stores.
@savvy999: As for tipping on carry-out: when I waited tables, we didn’t expect tips for to go orders, but we SURE appreciated them. I always tip on to-go and here is why.
Restaurants love to-go orders because they don’t take up valuable table real-estate. It’s quick: make the food, box it, they’ve paid and are out the door. However, servers usually end up having to drop everything they’re doing for the diners who will be tipping them in order to get that to-go order from the kitchen asap. AND servers usually end up having to box all the stuff up, make a to-go salad, drinks, condiments, etc. SO it’s like you think that because somebody didn’t wait on you the whole time, there should be no tip. But actually, the server is getting behind on serving the sit-down diners while preparing your food. SO I always tip to-go.
As for the main part of the post: I waited tables for years in a college town. Most of the people in that area were great tippers. Sometimes, though, these kids would come and dine and tip nothing. They’d had great service, just didn’t tip. In those cases, I would give myself twenty percent knowing their parents paid their credit card bills and they’d never find out. That never backfired.
@kellyd: Wow. You stole money from college kids by committing credit card fraud. And you even found a way to justify it to yourself, to the extent that you’re posting just to gloat. Calling you a bad human being seems somehow inadquate.
@kellyd: You’re kidding, right? Seriously. You took money from other people, and you are happy to do it. What kind of scum are you? Would you want someone to take money from you? It’s never deserved, no matter how much you think it is. Even if you tipped, wouldn’t you get angry if you found out someone had taken more than you gave them? Deal with it, sometimes people are just bad tippers. That’s the way it is sometimes, life is unfair. When I worked retail, I had my hours and I was made to stay anywhere from an hour to two hours after I was supposed to get off, just because the managers felt like it. I didn’t walk around sabotaging or stealing from the store, I took my lumps and figured that I wouldn’t work there anymore once I found a different job.
There is no excuse for stealing.
If being a server is so bad, why don’t they push for higher wages? and remove the tip altogether. Get paid more and not have to rely on tips?
The subject line should be “Nerd Tipping”.
If you are in a party of 6 or more at one table (even if paying on seperate checks), be wary of a tip being automatically added to your ticket.
Many menus include fine print stating “A gratuity of 15% (or more) will automatically be added for parties of 6 or more.”
Unfortunately, some restaurats add this to the main bill on a credit card purchase, leaving the “tip” line open – a trick that, if not caught, can result in a customer tipping twice.
Ask for and review the itemized bill before signing (and adding a tip to) the credit card receipt…and, if you do not feel the service received justifies the automatic tip amount added, ask the manager to adjust the tip amount accordingly.
“Or, you could all be nice to your servers, tip generously and forget all this paranoia”
The bad guys will still add to your tip, it happens and being nice wont solve a thing.
When it does happen call restaurant and if they give you grief just call the CC company and report the charge as fraud.