Additional charges on the bill

That still happens a lot in garages around my way despite them knowing that 99% of their clientele are retail customers and not trade:

That'll be £100 plus VAT
That'll be £500 plus VAT

It's almost that they've been doing it for so long that they carry on doing it.

fking hell. That's really taking the piss.

There is a local Indian restaurant near me that did a take-away service, but only over the phone...which could take a while to get through on as they only had one phone line.

The take-away prices were a bit random, as they never added up to the eat-in price, but also didn't seem to follow any consistent discount rate for pick-ups (i.e. the price for the same order could vary from £32-£38 depending on who took the order, and some would remember the complementary poppadoms/pickles...some wouldn't...and no, that wasn't what made the price fluctuate).

Eventually they offered a separate take-away menu (both now available on their website and updated more frequently than their previous once-a-year frequency) that stated "save 10% by ordering online", probably as a way to reduce the phone calls staff had to take.

Tried it once, and realised the bill seemed a bit high...and when challenged they said the 10% saving was on the eat-in prices, not the take-away prices. But the take-away menu prices were already about 20% less than the eat-in price.

So you'd be paying a 10% premium on the over-the-phone take-away price, just for the convenience of ordering online for pick-up.

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Another one was a bar in London who brought out food and asked whether we needed cutlery. "Yes" was our response, and that was met with a comment that "There's a £1.99/table charge for cutlery, as our bar food is meant to be eaten with fingers!".

Fine, and no problem for the olives, almonds and sticky mini-sausages (although some toothpicks would have been less messy/more hygenic for our group)...but a bit of an issue for my spiced pumpkin soup.

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Last one from me, but another place in London, quite expensive but it was on expenses.

Have a look at the menu, and there's a discretionary service charge of 18% for groups over 10 people (we're 8, so not concerned). Have a nice night, normal level of service (e.g. standard "can I take your order", "here's your drinks", "here's your food", "here's your bill" type), and get presented with the bill.

Service charge of 18% has been added, so as it's discretionary & we're a party of only 8, we ask them to remove it as we can't claim it on expenses and would like to leave a 10% tip in cash instead.

Response was that wasn't at the customer's discretion, but the management, based on how much we'd ordered (and the cost). So if we'd ordered more expensive (or more) drinks and had a dessert as well, they may have waived it.

I just passed the bill to the boss to pay (we normally take turns to pay to stop maxxing one person's credit card) - and let him 'discuss' it with the manager.

Ended up getting the service charge being removed, and leaving zero tip.

That did make me laugh and reminded me of a joke.

A man goes into a restaurant, he sits down, he's having a bowl of soup. He says to the waiter, "Waiter, come, taste the soup."
The waiter says, "Is something wrong with the soup?"
He says, "Taste the soup."
The waiter says "Is there something wrong with the soup, is the soup too hot?"
He says "Will you taste the soup?"
"What's wrong, is the soup too cold?"
"Will you just taste the soup?"
"Alright I'll taste the soup?! Where is the spoon?"

Genius strategy for achieving stable revenue from repeat business: make customer feel abused by trying to charge them a few extra percent at the last moment, clearly in return for fk all. It's so stupid.

It's also anti-competitive, for, as we all know, price transparency is crucial if a market is going to operate efficiently. How on earth is anyone going to be able to compare prices for a good if the prices you're being quoted aren't the real prices you'll be charged?? Competition authorities should come down on this malpractice like a ton of bricks.

In California restaurants will no longer be able to charge service fees and will instead have to fold the charges into its menu prices, starting July 1.
I wonder if this new law will also prevent them from applying the very American practice of charging 18% extra for parties of 6 or more?
I gather many other states are considering implementing the same law.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article2881...

Just back from Arizona where restaurants have a business continuation fee (4%) as they are struggling with inflation, oddly enough so are we!

Canadian airlines have also now tried to start charging a fee for preferential access to the overhead bins on flights, yes you don’t have to pay it, but really what’s next , charging a traveller information fee for demonstrating the safety features?

I use Fiverr quite a bit.

You find a freelancer and they quote a price and you start the order. You're then faced with a list of things for which additional charges apply; regional licenses, extended licenses, commercial rights and others. It annoys me that these are not provided to you to tick at the point at which an enquiry is made and before the price is calculated.

Once the order is completed, you then receive the option to provide a 'tip' to the freelancer.

If they have to pay their staff extra to work on a public holiday then it would be fair.

There's no statutory right to extra pay for public holidays. It's also up to the employer whether you work them or not.