Restaurant scams
Check to be sure you ordered every item on the bill
Oh, waiter! There's a scam in my soup!
The scam is: you didn't order the soup.
Some shady waiters will pad bills with:
- Unordered items—Easy to do when it's hard to tell what's scribbled on the bill.
- Fictional surcharges—If the menu doesn't specify a "cover charge" or something like that, and one shows up, question it.
- Doubled taxes—Let's see, that'd be 15% for the government, and 15% for the waiter's pocket.
- Simple shortchanging—Scrutinize the bill carefully, but surreptitiously and politely—no need to offend the thousands of honest waiters by being obvious about your suspicions.
