Greedy restaurants

-
Look, this is how it's worked for hundreds of years: you eat your meal, ask for the bill and then pay it, adding a little extra as a tip if you've had good service. But restaurants have obviously decided that people aren't being generous enough and have started being very sneaky. I went to Ma Potters in Reading today and, in a bit of a hurry, glanced at the bill and then paid it, adding roughly 10% in my head. The bill seemed a bit high, but I didn't want to cause a fuss because the restaurant was crowded, so I left before examining the itemised bill in more detail. They'd added on 10% automatically, INCLUDING it in the final bill total. So they'd sneakily managed to get two tips out of me. Grrrr.... The moral: examine the bill more closely before you pay. And I'm going to protest by deliberately removing the 10% from restaurrant bills that include this 'optional' extra - and not returning to any of these establishments.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I agree, and they usually say on the bill something like "discretionary 10% automatically included". How can it be discretionary if it's included already? Like you. I always take it off. The other trick restaurants play is to charge VAT twice on drinks - if you have a drink at the bar, and pay for it there, the VAT is included. If you buy the same drink at your table, they'll add the VAT with the rest of your bill!! So buy your drinks at the bar and take them to your table.
2:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wavelet - and better sounding speakers (and headphones) on Android...

-
Image
You may well be fairly happy with the audio output (speakers and headphones) on your existing Android phone. Or, like me, you may welcome an extra step up. Perhaps more bass/punch, clearer treble, or perhaps just a volume boost overall. Now, there have been various 'boost' utilities for Android in the past and they've been a bit patchy in how well they work. But Wavelet, discovered by Ted Salmon back in 2021, is a whole different kettle of fish, in that it works supremely well, with extra bass, clarity, and volume,   BUT has a very confusing interface. Which is why a brief tutorial is in order. The steps come from Ted in bullet point form, but expanded by me here and with screenshots, which will hopefully help. By the way, ignore the 'headphone specific' text in the app's title - it works perfectly well for speakers too. In fact, by definition, I'd say that it's really ONLY for speakers, since with headphones you've usually got plenty of natural i...
Read more

Bluetooth keyboard incorrect PIN or password - SOLVED

-
Image
Just in case this helps anyone else, I had a nightmare today with my Bluetooth keyboard and my Android phone - but I used some common sense and found a geeky solution. In my case it was a ZTE Axon 7 running Lineage OS and a Microsoft Universal Folding Keyboard (UFK), but I suspect this cure will work for more general issues. The symptom was that when I tried to connect a previously paired keyboard I first of all got just the raw Bluetooth address shown and not the keyboard name. And then, when I tried connecting, I got an "incorrect PIN or password" error message. No chance to reenter a PIN and no amount of restarting keyboard or phone would fix it. The cure seemed to be to reset something in the phone's Bluetooth system, but what? The keyboard wasn't showing up as paired, so I couldn't 'forget' it. I tracked it down in the end. Settings, Apps, then 'Show system' on the '...' menu. Find and tap on 'Bluetooth extensions'....
Read more

Why the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is better than the 15 Pro Max

-
Image
Forgive the click bait(y) title, but there's actual evidence here, I promise. Note that I did write an article before availability, putting forward worries and concerns , but I've now had hands-on to confirm a few things and report back.  Cased (of course, read the blooming' article!) Pro Maxes - 15 and 14 (with XtremeSkin, Aged Oak , in case you're wondering!) In fact, it's the first time ever in the iPhone line-up/evolution that I seriously think the old 'Pro Max' model can be argued to be  better than the new one. (Admittedly, that I already own the old one [14 Pro Max] and didn't really want to spend over £1000 on the 15 Pro Max possibly helps my argument from a personal perspective.) (There's one big win for the new model, of course. Type C connectivity has been a long time coming - but this will take several generations to become established in iPhone/Lightning households and maybe I'll come back to this in a future article.) My observat...
Read more