How Carefully Do You Check Bills?

I generally give a quick once over to a check, but don't usually sit around with a calculator. The hardest kind of check is of course the handwritten scribbly one, especially if its a large party with multiple courses. But one generally has a rough idea, and it bothers me when I seem way off. The other night we split a check with another family, but it nagged at me that bill seemed so high. When I went to Zagat for restuarant info, I see the following review:

Reviewed by sylviap469112 on 05/21/2007.
Member since March 2003, Total Reviews: 15 (Bound Brook, NJ) Watch your check! We had a party of 13. When the check arrived, it had 4 lines - each with an amount - one for appetizers, one for entrees, one for desserts and one for the bar that totalled $1002.00. Feeling that the bill was "fixed" we asked for an itemized bill as one would receive in all other restaurants. The manager refused sating it would be too much work. After requesting a third time and standing over him, the bill was $220 less! No apoligies! Nothing! I wonder how many people have been ripped off without catching the dollars padded into the check!
Uh oh. So I faxed and mailed the following letter to the restaurant, and got zero response. No chargeback as of today, so I've started dispute w/Amex.

But besides my story, a more general question. Do you normally check the math (not just the items) on a restaurant bill? If we had been just us I probably would have, but probably ego kept me from saying "hey, that seems high." I also didn't want to seem like I was not wanting to pay half (there were 4 of them and 3 of us).

Thoughts?


(edited to remove other family's name, and phone numbers, etc)
On Friday night (August 17th) my wife, stepson, and I dined at Caravela with another family (the Gs). The seven of us each ordered an appetizer or salad and a main course. Two people ordered desserts, we each got coffee or tea. I remember being a little surprised at the $403 total before tip, but I was basically trying to have a good time (birthday dinner for kids) and didn't try to add up the individual items. So figured 20% tip and we split the bill ($242 on each of two credit cards for a total of $484). But it did bother me a bit as I couldn't quite work out how the food worked out to $323.

The $52 bar seems within reason ($35 bottle of Lavradores de Feitoria Tres Bagos, 2002 , plus 2 glasses of red at I assume at $8.50 each). I think my memory is correct, as the total ($323 for food, $52 for bar) works out correctly for the $403 total at 7.375% tax (tax rounds up to $28 ).

So this weekend I started figuring the totals of the food. I checked versus the menu posted on the website, prices matched my memory.

Appetizers/starters:

1 Country Style Pate $9
1 Seared Sea Scallops $9
1 Caldo Verde - $7
2 X House Salad $6
Radicchio, Spinach & Belgian Endive $8
Gazpacho $8 (this is the one I might be off a dollar one way or the other, not on website)
$53

I can't swear an oath to the prices of the last two main courses, but I'm sure they weren't more than $26, which seemed to be upper end for the seafood dishes:
Chilean Sea Bass $26
Paella Valenciana $23
2 X Chicken Macau $17
Veal $23
*Zarzeula $26
*Pompano $26
$158

I do remember the line on bill for the 7 Coffee/Teas @ $3 =$21

The only thing I don't recall is the 2 desserts. But pretty sure they did not total $91.

Figuring desserts at $10 a piece (which is probably high), it seems we were overcharged by a minimum of $71. Can you think of anything I missed? We didn't order bottled water or any other food.

We'll accept for now this was an honest mistake. I believe you are required to keep receipts for tax reasons. Please check your receipts for Friday night, it shouldn't be hard to isolate the check for $403. Check your math.

Please contact me if you can find a reason that our food total was so much more than menu prices indicate. Assuming this was an addition mistake, food total should have been no more than $252, with $52 bar and 7.0375% tax that makes $327. I'd say this extra hassle makes me not want to tip my normal 20%, but 15% (not entire staff's fault, though its tempting to say no tip), so $376. Which means we should each get $54 back on our credit cards. You should have the credit card receipts and be able to charge back.

If you wish to contest my figures, please contact me to explain how you arrived at the $323 food figure. If no chargeback is made, I plan on contesting the charge with American Express, and I am sure that BG will do the same with his card. I'd prefer to do this without that hassle, but if you don't refund money or come up with a reasonable explanation of this discrepancy we'll have to assume this is intentional, and proceed accordingly, with attendant consequences.

During the day I can be reached at my office at XX, or by fax at XX. If you prefer email I can be reached at XX or XX. BG can be reached at XX.

Please attend to this matter ASAP.

Wow, Dale. You seemed pretty restrained in your message to them. I would have been livid.

How carefully I check the bill or do the math varies with the circumstances.

If it's a restaurant I am very familiar with, I will give it a cursory glance and make sure a) it's actually our check; and b) that the amount seems about right.

If a new place, I tend to look at it much more carefully, or if I am with people who insist on tallying up each person's "share" instead of splitting the bill more or less evenly.

With good friends in a place well known to us, we pretty much just glance at it and pay it.


I hope this is resolved to your satisfaction.

Wow was my reaction, too, Cynthia. Just wow.

I DO tend to check my bills carefully--more of a line item check that the bill is for what we ordered...rough calculations...The whole idea of not presenting an itemized bill is ...well, dare I say it? Fraud waiting to happen.

Aside from intential cheating going on, on more than one occasion we have been presented with another table's check--just harried servers mixing up the folders the checks are in...that I believe truly is an honest mistake as the scales could tip either way as to whom gets off lighter! Always quickly corrected, though.

Stop the AMex charge for sure until they do address this.

b

The charge is in dispute.

The Zagat poster didn't get an itemized bill, we got one of those guest checks (like you see in a diner, almost every restaurant we dine in has itemized computer check). But with 7 main courses, 7 coffees, 2 desserts, and 7 appetizers was 17 prices (the coffee said 7 X 3 ) it's just a big jumble of numbers in the margins.

I doubt seriously it's accidental. My guess they're the rare restaurant without a POS computer because they want to cheat. But I wanted to give them the option of stepping up to the plate.

In addition to disputing charge, I intend to send letters to the BBB and the NYS AG Consumer Fraud office. And relate my experience on Zagat, Chowhound, eGullet, and the forum for the local paper. Can you imagine an honest mistake where they wouldn't have called re that letter? I gave them a chance,

Can you imagine an honest mistake where they wouldn't have called re that letter?

Nope, I can't. I would have been on the phone to you in about a nanosecond.

My friends who own restaurants would fire this manager the second this was brought to their attention. No patience for that kind of thing at all. But I guess if the owners know and condone it, don't care, or get a cut....

If I'm lunching with a girlfried, I check the bill to make sure it is ours and within the ballpark. My husband always checks very carefully when we are out for dinner, either the two of us or a group. We have been ripped off before especially with bar bills. The first time you are a victim, after that you are a volunteer. We are very careful not only with food bills but making sure we have invoices for our charge card charges. We just caught an error this week from an online template company who billed us for 10.99. They won't return phone calls or emails. So our credit card company credited our account and will look into it.
It is truly amazing who is lurking out there just waiting for you to take the bait.

Well, I think you are taking the right approach, Dale. The time to come down hard is after this first attempt to resolve the problem honorably. I feel like calling the restaurant and ranting that "A friend of mine said that blah...blah...blah. Is it true? How are you going to make it right? etc." But I will not do that. I couldn't help notice that the restaurant's web site is about the only one I've ever seen that did not have a "Contact Us" link.

Back to your original question: I do check bills pretty carefully. Before the bill is even tendered, I'll have a good idea, in round numbers, of what the total should be. If the bill is really off, I'll start doing the math.

Good for you Dale. I think you are handling the matter perfectly.
You really hold the trump card when you pay with a CC, being able to dispute after the fact. If it was a cash payment, you'd be out of luck.

To answer your original question, yes, I always give the check a look. I've been blessed with a good aptitude for numbers, and I usually know in my head what it should be before it gets to me, so I don't have to sit there and stare at it, or whip out a calculator, or anything like that. If it's just me and my wife having lunch or dinner, it takes me about five or ten discreet seconds.

When we're out with others, OTOH, it's a different matter. If the check comes to me, I feel an obligation to look it over for accuracy. If it goes to the other party, I defer to them, to check it, or not, as they see fit. I'm not going to question them. Once they tell me my share, I pony up.

Good luck in your efforts.

I always check a restaurant bill for accuracy. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes there are addition mistakes or items on the bill that shouldn't be there. In my experience these have all been innocent mistakes, and when pointed out have been corrected without question.

I would never accept an excuse of an itemized bill being "too much work". Who is working for whom here?? If I thought I were overcharged, I would not pay until an itemized accounting of all charges was presented. As the customer paying for the service, you are entitled to a full accounting before paying a single penny.

-Paul W.

I always check for accuracy as well. On another note, after adding my tip on the credit card receipt, I note the total on my receipt and check it after it's been posted to my account online...It doesn't happen often, but some unscrupulous waiters have been known to add a few dollars to that amount when they finalize the bill, since you've already left the restaurant at that point...(e.g., bill for $53 with a tip of $10...shows up on the credit card bill for $67). Since many people do not scrutinize their monthly bills for such accuracy, those dishonest waiters think no one will notice (and they are usually right).

It's only happened to me once or twice, and my father had it happen to him on a business trip where he paid the group's bill ($20 extra dollars were added!). He called the restaurant, which promptly refunded the amount, but they were unapologetic and said there's no way that the waitress did it on purpose because she's in law school...

Well done, Dale. I think you are handling the situation very well indeed.

I check restaurant bills fairly carefully -- for some reason, I have a gift for estimating what the bill should be and don't usually have to check the details; and Janet almost always asked me later how much the bill was. She likes to keep track of whether restaurant charges are "reasonable". Sort of a one/two punch.

It's worth noting that I find errors both for and against me, probably 60/40 against me. It's interesting how many times servers or managers refuse to accept a correction in my favor -- makes me like the place better, I must say, even if the food wasn't really great.

At the moment, I'm fussing with an upscale hotel restaurant in Stockholm about an over-charge -- the amazing thing is that they've both over charged and under-charged me for the same meals.

The details are amusing, and at the moment they are insisting on not charging for two meals -- at some point if the email traffic continues, I'll probably just forget about it and count my blessings.

Again, Dale, you did good,you did.

I generally tally it up in my head before the bills gets to me, and usually know within a few $ of what it should be (seems natural to do so since I'm a CPA). I have had more problems, frankly, in retail stores like WalMart or Albertsons.

About the time I discovered Wine Lovers, I stopped in at a wine store I had never been in before, to just browse around and see how the selection and pricing compared to my "regular" stores. Prices were generally high, but they had a Malbec on special for 6.50, so I went for it (first try at Malbec). I paid with a twenty, got change for a ten, and when I said "excuse me, but I gave you a twenty", the clerk opened the cash drawer and handed me the other ten, along with a "cheap bastard" look. I won't patronize that store again!

A general response:

The bill was itemized in the sense all the prices were written down, but it was just 17 lines (plus bar and tax lines) with scribbles. It was the Zagat poster who got a completely unitemized bill, and the manager who argued it was too much trouble.

I have to believe management/owners are part of this. This is a restaurant that has been around at least 15 years, hard to believe that ownership would use the scribbled handwritten bill method rather than a modern POS system unless they want to take advantage. Even an adding machine tape would lessen the chance of mischief.

I'm pretty good at having a rough idea with a smaller party. But at a bigger dinner I was less conscious of what others were ordering. And splitting the check evenly made it less obvious what it was per person. And, being a typical male, there was a part of me that didn't want to seem I was trying to squirm out of paying (or pushing for a 3/7 split). By time we were in car, I was thinking "how did that happen?" Without the coffees the food part was $300, if desserts were $10 that left $40 per person. I knew our part of the food was less, but I wanted to check what the prices were on other family's dishes.

Bob, in general I'd say I find errors about evenly split. The biggest errors seem to come from side dishes, they're often not on bill. Or they are ordered, on bill, and one needs to point out they never arrived (I always tend to notice after we already are well into main, who wants green beans or broccoli rabe as dessert?).

And I agree its quite important to keep cc receipts with tip written in. I've had that issue twice. Last time server made my $18 tip $48 by crossing the 1, and just writing a 3 over the 0 on total. When bill arrived I called restaurant, they were livid and apologiuzed, hopefully waitrss fired ($18 was at least a 20% tip). I do confess to on at least one occasion realizing next day that I had tipped less than intended (too much wine?) and calling to authorize restaurant to adjust bill.

Robert, whether at retail or restaurant, I agree there is nothing more infuriating than them making a mistake, and then acting like you're a cheap pain in the $%^ for pointing it out.

PS: I also think its likely that this place saves their "mistakes" for a big party, where it's harder to add in head, bills are being split, and they know egos are probably involved.

there's no way that the waitress did it on purpose because she's in law school...

Clearly, she's been paying attention in class. A legal career is a natural for her.

"Bob, in general I'd say I find errors about evenly split. The biggest errors seem to come from side dishes, they're often not on bill. Or they are ordered, on bill, and one needs to point out they never arrived (I always tend to notice after we already are well into main, who wants green beans or broccoli rabe as dessert?)."

That's consistent with my experience as well, Dale. Janet and I remind each other to check the bill for stuff that doesn't arrive -- as you say, sometimes the phantom side dishes appear on the bill.

[Jenise]

What John T. said.

Furthermore, the two times I can remember getting an unitemized bill, once in Napa Valley and once in Zurich, Switzerland, both times the amount was significantly higher than the ballpark figure in our heads, we asked for an itemized accounting, and yes we had been overcharged by around $50. Interesting.

I always check.

An unitemized bill is unacceptable.

Dale,

To address your issue with the restaurant specifically, I suspect the lack of a POS system has little to do with ripping off customers. But I'm willing to bet that restaurant's owners are skimming money off the top and underreporting revenue and profit to the IRS.....that's where the big money is. And that is a task that would be made much more difficult by a POS system.

I've been blessed with the ability to do arithmetic in my head fairly rapidly and accurately so i have a pretty good ballpark idea what the bill should be before it arrives. And I do doublecheck that.

I also reconcile every credit card bill we receive against receipts. Unlike other posters here, I have to say I never discovered a manipulated charge receipt from a restaurant. Incorrect or unauthorized charges, yes.