Drinks missed off restaurant bill - WWYD?

I have done, and I haven't done. Nowadays I'm more likely to pay up and leave with a big smile.

I don't think I'd tell them. It might depend - if I went there regularly I would be more likely to say something as otherwise I would be embarrassed every time I went. If it was a one off place, I wouldn't tell them.

L
xx

Same for me, it depends on whether or not I was a regular there. Also, I'd have been much more likely to leave without fessing up when I was a skint student.

Yes, I would have to say something. On Sunday the place where we held our son's birthday party forgot to charge us for the food and I owned up. After our wedding I bought 8 champagne flutes from John Lewis and they charged me £80 per pair when they should have been £80 each, and I owned up. The woman got so sniffy with me over it that I went away wishing I hadn't bothered tbh. Maybe she felt embarrassed at her incompetence or something but I was so cross!

I would tell them in case the waiter ended up paying for the missing drinks. Also, I bet you'd get good service if you went back (so not entirely altruistic!)

I wouldn't tell them.

However i'm generally an honest person, i found £40 in tesco the other day and handed it in at customer services, i'm sure the person who lost it though wouldn't have gone back and it's probably been shared amongst the customer services staff.

Does this happen though or is it one of those urban myths everyone accepts? In most restaurants there would be so many people involved in the bill (bar staff, any waitress you've flagged down on the way past etc) that I don't see how the restaurant can then say its one persons fault? Furthermore if there was any chance of this ever happening to me when I worked in a restaurant I would insist the manager approved each bill before I delievered it, as you'd hardly be able to afford it on minimum wage.

I did when we had a dinner party for Mr P's birthday .. the wine came to over 200 quid and it wasn't on the bill. Opened my mouth before brain kicked in, but on reflection it was the honest thing to do. They would have contacted me anyway, I'm sure.

If the service had been really bad then I wouldn't tell them as I'd think it served them right but in other situations I would always tell them.

Hmmm it would depend on a few things. If I was pleased with everything I and/or the drinks were a large propertion of the bill I'd be more inclined to fess up.

Recently we were at a function where the drinks orders were a bit chaotic and before leaving everyone checked that drinks had been paid for. We were told they had and some assumed that someone else had bought a round as they felt they hadn't paid for some (I was on water so wasn't really involved) and the waiters said it was all covered. The next day the manager rang the person organising to say a drinks bill had been missed and organiser ended up having to go and pay it which I thought I was abit rude of the venue to not suck it up as I feel it was their problem...

It would totally depend on the way the computer system worked - I used to work in a place where stuff would go in the till (if you seen what I mean - when people made their order or set up their tab), and if it wasn't paid (so the till didn't balance) you would have to make that up. Each person had a code so they could see who made what order. This is going back 8 years but I'm sure this kind of stuff still goes on. You could insist that a manager approved each bill but I don't think you'd have that job for very long if you did! ?

It would all depend on the situation and circumstance.

If for example it was a single round of drinks missed of a bill I'm not sure I'd even notice!

If it was somewhere I went regularly I'd definitely say something however much teh amount

Jaz - I'd have gone mad over that! The group did everything they could to make sure it was all paid for before they left - I'd have said it was their problem if they still got it wrong after all that! Plus they could have been taking the mick. Knowing it was so chaotic other people not in the same party may not have paid and then they could have charged your party for it instead. I'd have liked to see proof of what was owed in this situation tbh.

I know, me too! But they were local to the place and didn't want people talking about them and I think they may not have believed everyone had checked properly that the drinks had been paid for but they had ? Each to their own and all that!

WDS

I would tell because:

a. it's right

b. I'd be worried that they'd realise and correct it/contact me afterwards, and it would be mortifyingly obvious that I'd deliberately not mentioned it

c. I always open my mouth and blurt out such errors before I've even had a chance to think about benefiting from them

This happened to us a couple of years ago in our local indian restaurant. We told them and I was a bit surprised that they then put the drinks on the bill (was something like two kingfishers). I thought that, as regular customers, they'd tell us not to worry about it. However, since then we've had loads of free drinks. If we're waiting for a takeaway they always pour us a beer and we usually get at least one round if we're eating in.

I'd tell without thinking about it if I noticed and have done in various similar situations because;

1) What goes around comes around,

2) I hate people being dishonest so would be very hypocritical if I were not honest with others,

3) Losing my moral highground wouldn't be worth the saving on a few drinks ?

This has happened to me before and I haven't told them. I worked in the catering industry for a good while and have no sympathy for people who employ staff numpty enough to do this ? (because those who do generally do it more than once).

I find this view the oddest of all. How can understand someone paying, I can understand someone keeping quiet and treating it as having got lucky. I can't understand someone thinking "Should I effectively steal from this restaurant? Well, they were a bit slow bringing our second bottle of wine..." ?

When I owned up, not only did they put the drinks on the bill (which I expected, so wasn't p'd off at that) but the service charge was also increased as it was a % of the whole bill. That p'd me off! They didn't even thank us for telling them their error.

This has happened to us at a local restaurant three times - the first two times we told them, the third time we were getting a bit fed up of it always taking so long to pay the bloody bill so we didn't. It always ended up taking ages because they had to go and print a new bill, remember to bring it back to us, find out (again) what drink we'd had...

Before that it had only happened once elsewhere and we fessed up straight away.