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Whaa?
This is long, sorry. Do any of you have any history working in restaurants? Because I learned something new today, and frankly, it upsets me a little bit.
Backstory: I took my parents out to the Melting Pot for an early mothers day gift. I paid with my debit card, and left a cash tip. This morning, my husband was looking at our finances and noticed that they charged us about $20.00 extra on our debit card than what was on the receipt I had from the night before.
So I called the restaurant today, and here is what I learned. Apparently, some restaurants process card charges twice. The first time they do it is with the initial bill (pre tip). They then adjust the charge at a later time to reflect whatever tip was left.
In this world of online banking, you can see a charge online almost as soon as it is made on a card. Since the tip at some restaurants isn't reflected until a later time, some restaurants will add a percentage onto the initial charge without the signer's knowledge. They will then adjust the charge as needed later on when the tip is processed so that the customer is ultimately not overcharged. They say they do this so that a person who is checking their online balance between the time they view the initial charge and when the tip charge is updated, they won't think there's more in their account than there is and ultimately overdraft.
So the extra $20 on my debit card reflects that they added that themselves until they could correct it in their system (since I left a cash tip). Since I charged on a Saturday, they said it should be updated on Monday.
Two things:
1) It is not the restaurant's job to make sure I don't overdraft my account.
2) By "helping" to make sure I don't overdraft my account, they almost overdrafted my account! I'm glad my husband caught this - I was going to go grocery shopping today. Guess not until I have the rest of my money!
So am I the only person who didn't know restaurants did this? Have I been living under a rock?
Re: Whaa?
I knew about the charging twice, but I've never seen it over charged then taken back. I almost always see a charge for the total bill (pre-tip), then a couple of days later, the charge has changed to the amount of the total bill + tip. I've also found that this way, sometimes they don't even do the 2nd charge, so I guess they don't get their tip. But, I think that's their fault and we just take it.
Charging too much is crazy to me, but I guess I wouldn't be too surprised at a place like the Melting Pot. I'm sure their "policy" is to charge 18% or something like that as a tip on each ticket. I'm not really used to going to places like that.
I barely go to places that tip at all! Haha!
I don't really even care if places are up front about automatically including gratuity on the meal (as long as they're up front about it). This whole "overdraft protection" thing pisses me off, though.
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