Joe paid for his restaurant meal, except he apparently didn’t. Two weeks after he paid his check by debit card, the charge has yet to show up on his account. The thing is, he wasn’t happy with the meal or the service, so he’s not all that motivated to call management and tell them they probably forgot to charge him.

He writes:

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend & I went out to a decent dinner at a locally owned restaurant. This restaurant is one we have not been to in years mostly due to having had problems in the past with being over billed either for the meal or having extra tip added after the fact. The group that owns this restaurant owns two others we frequent and have never had these issues with. (It should be noted we were not the only ones with problems, as reviews were once ripe with them, but part of our return was hearing they hired new staff due to the issues).

I charged the meal to my debit/credit card but to date there is no pending charge for the meal. The bank has nothing pending when I called them either. Normally I’d contact the vendor & make sure all is well, but with the problems of the past & the poor service from the waitstaff this trip I am inclined not to and just wait it out. The question is how long is the term before I can be sure the charge wont show up at some mysterious later date?

For our purposes the question is about the ethical implications of ignoring a non-charge for disappointing service. Let your voice be heard in our poll.

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