Over-charging at TT eating and drinking events

On nearly every TT eating or drinking event with a large group, as soon as the bill comes there's always a few extra beers added to the total. Maybe they hear that we are English and think they can get away with it. When I go eating with a large group of Germans this never happens. So my question is how can we make sure this does not happen again? Writting on small pieces of paper on what you had helps but is not a guarantee that they won't add a few more beers to the bill.

Pay-as-you-go is the only guarantee.

Agreed.. This is the norm for TTF after getting stuck with xtra drinks

Maybe some freeloading bastard at your table is getting extra drinks and not claiming them.

Happened to me at the O'Fest once. Told them from the start we wanted to pay as we go...were told we can only cash in at the end (for fear of the following...). Well, as the story goes, we got stuck with a big bill---but was much reduced only after I got my buddy who worked for Spaten to step in...hehehhe ANYHOO---the same people tried the same stunt again at the same table the next year-----then they remembered that had already tried that on before...Sorry had to rant.

LESSON: INSIST ON PAY AS YOU GO---Elfenstar is right.

Indeed. Pay as you go. This kind of stuff happens everywhere and it is not always intentional. When you have a group with very large numbers who are all drinking copious amounts of alcohol then these mistakes happen. You would be surprised just how often people really do underestimate how much they have had to drink

So true. Happened at a company table I was at last year- Hippodrome. I don't think it was intentional, but there was no way we drank that much. he was ticked, and kicked us out immediately; told us we shouldn't bother to get a table next year - not that I wanted one.

I generally like the Hippodrome, but this guy seriously thought we were doin' him one over. of course, when the table hasta be cleared in a hurry, you've had 2-3 beers, it's not easy to figure out if the invoice is correct quickly.

Augustiner Tent was famous for over-pricing. One company sued them because they calculated something like 10 beers per person! Wheras my buddy was tellin me that his friend has got sued by the tent (forgot which) for leaving without paying the bill -- after 45 minutes of trying to pay, he finally left (with money on the table).

LESSON: INSIST ON PAY AS YOU GO.

KK

I'm not a huge friend of pay-as-you-go, it's a nuisance fumbling around in my wallet every time I get a drink, esp. when I order often/a lot.

Ideally, the waiter/barman should keep written track of what each individual had and mark it on the beer mat, as e.g. Molly Malone's do. That is the best solution, he is treating everyone as individuals responsible for themselves rather than keeping track somewhere behind the counter of what the entire group has had. Ultimately, it's the waiter's responsibility to get his money from each individual, unless we specify beforehand that we want a collective bill (which we don't). We should point out at the beginning that we want separate bills for each person.

I agree with CK. At the over thirties night out a couple of days ago at Don Luca's, they clearly screwed us and were even rather clumsy about it: After everybody paid, the waiter says something about 2 drinks unaccounted for, then, once he sees we'd be stupid enough to pay, he comes back and says there's 34.- EUR total missing, then he sees our reaction and realizes he may have overdone it a bit, "recalculates" and says 11.50 EUR. And... we paid. They know they can get away with almost anything on Leopoldstraße, including crap service and mediocre food, which is why the pubs/restaurants there are not amongst my favourite.

I agree with Oli. We should tell the restaurants up front that we want separate bills and also that we move around a bit on the tables. Also, we should point out that we cannot be responsible for other people's bills.

This is exactly why Pay-as-you go works. This way there is nothing for the bar person/waitor to even try to cheat on.
It removes their tracking completly and put the burden on the cust. where it should be.

If each item is paid for when it is served or ordered, then neither the Resturant person or the Cust. can forget or get cheated.

You try keeping track of a resturant full of people, that move around.
It bet ya it ain't easy.

another option is to have a sheet of cardboard (or paper) and a big thick pen. Everytime the waiter brings drinks, write them down, show him the sheet and get his confirmation. This avoids pay as you go. You (as a group) only pay for what you had. The problem is then sorting out who had how many. (which is easily done if you keep track on your beermat.)

the problem is that some people leave earlier its always the last people in pub that have to pay for the extra beers and theres no way of proving it different . how about if we have splinter groups each of 4 people that settle there bill. explain to the waiter befor thats how we want to settle the bill separate for each group

Oh you guys look for hassle. Just consider that extra drinks as a charity to the person who had it. That is the way i treat unknown bills.

Plus: when it is divided by number of people it does not get that much.

Only to the missus. Nah, I only had a couple. hic

@koorosh

Unless the bill was for 40-50 Eur, and there are only 2 people left as has happened before.

extra drinks as a charity to the person
Whats the next event your going to? I could always use some free "charity" beer

Actually youo have a point there. And how many times have we been out drinking, received the bill, and said things like "Eh? Nah! We had waaaaaay more to drink than that, surely. Anyway, he's fucking paying so don't ask me"

bollix!!! I have been the waitress/barmaid in many TT outings, and never ever have I added extra beers to a TT bill... there were times when beers were left unpaid for, and someone (or two ) ended up having to come up with the money for them...
to expect the waitress/barmaid to remember every single drink every single costumer has had on a night out is absolutely ridiculous, especially when they are mingling around...get a job at a busy pub and you will understand why. I have taken care of many TT tabs ...dont expect "pay-as-you-go" when there is football on, or any major sport event...

I have had TT tabs running up to 500 yoyos where every drink was paid for, and nothing was left unpaid.

more than often people understimate the amount of beer they drink. I have had many problems in that respect, people claiming to have only drunk 3 beers when I know for fact that they had 6... and the beers left unpaid were then paid out of my pocket (regular customers, not necessarily TTers)...

for the sake of the ones who always ended up being the last ones to leave (Jimbo, Tif, Eric the Hamster, Sparty...) I began writing on beer-mats (also with their names on it)... in case of televised sports events, I left a pen on each table and let them take care of it.

have to agree with tuca and crawkie, its very easy to forget whether it was 6 or 7 weissbiers, i always pay that extra one just in case it was brain+alcohohohol=innumeracy. theres nothing worse then watching well paid aldults haggeling a waitress or waiter for the sake of two beers.

DK: you are welcome to a beer on my treat. But why charity?

One of the reasons I will not go back to Joe Penas- is they got really nasty with us when I know my friends paid before they left, and the Restuarant said - nobody paid- wanted me to pay the extra 60 on the bill.
Happens often at Curry night with the slips of paper, but I will be honest, its getting better since some people don't come out that often (the ones that forget to mark down the 4th beer- and then say they only had 3).
I am often the last one to leave an have been left often with the bill. But last week at Ganesha- they take our word for it! Never been a problem there.

Sometimes the experienced waiters clock some extra beers on the cash register if theres a large group and i am saying its a regular occurance with english speaking groups or probably any other non german group.With a german group they would not get away with it.Maybe its because they feel that they don't get enough tips by non german groups and make it up by other means

Why would a waitress risk getting fired over something stupid like that? Waitstaff may make mistakes but purposely ripping off a customer is way more trouble than it's worth. "Clocking in" extra beers into the register won't make the waitress any money because she owes the restaurant anything recorded in the till. Anything rung into the till has to be accounted for at the end of the night and paid out to the restaurant. The only way a waitress could be pocketing money is if they do not present you with a bill. That bill shows the amount that the waitress will owe the restaurant at the end of the night. There is no way a waitress will purposely add anything onto a bill because she is responsible for paying that out. If you're worried just ask to see a bill, once it's rung in, the waitress can't go back in and delete things.

Besides if you're going to rip anyone off it's a lot easier to rip off the establishment without anyone noticing than the customer. What can happen is that the you will be asked to pay for your drink without seeing a bill (happens a lot more here than anywhere else I've seen), the waitress may have not rung it in and pocketed the money you gave her without ringing it into the till. In this case she is stealing from the restaurant, this can happen but purposely adding drinks to your bill doesn't benefit her one bit and is totally illogical. The only time I could ever see this happen is if the waitress has made an error.

In conclusion, if you have a bill you're not being ripped off so quit yer whining!

My perception was that this thread is not about TTers who forget how many beers they've had, we know it's bad but occasionally happens unintentionally and there already have been various threads about it. For the record, I once forgot a cocktail at Lehner's, and once an Irish Breakfast at GMs - in both cases I paid the respective people back of course, and I've certainly often covered for other people at the end of a night without always getting it back, simply b/c nobody claimed the extra drinks.

This thread is about waiters deliberately adding a few beers or even dishes to the bill at the end of the night - and yes, in spite of what ER just posted above, that does also happen sometimes - perhaps, as CK pointed out in his 1st post, due to the fact that we are a large English-speaking group and some restaurants think they can get away with it thinking they are dealing with a bunch of foreign tourists/business people. It's happened at Rama, Don Luca's, Juleps, and also again just a few days ago inside the Hofbräukeller (Traveler can confirm that the waitress billed extra drinks there, that nobody ordered/had). So what do you do? Mostly, we pay, to avoid the hassle, to not spoil the pleasant atmosphere of the evening, being that some restaurants apparently can turn unpleasant when confronted.

OK Oli, if it happens how you say it explain the logic to me. Why would I as a waitress purposely ring in extra drinks on your bill? What benefit does that give me? I don't get to keep the extra money for myself as it will have to be accounted for to the restaurant and I risk having the customer refuse to pay it and then have to pay it out of my own pocket.

Explain to me why I would do this?

The waiter or waitress does not have to add the extra drinks to the bill that is printed by the register. All they have to do is not cross out or mark off drinks and/or food that has already been paid for. Simple really.

The Hofbraukellar incedent Oli2000 mentioned was definitely and overcharge. There were only six of us at the table for about an hour. We paid up and went outside, The waitress came outside to find us. In this case she found me and claimed there were 2 more beers and one coke. What gave it away was the coke. The only guy drinking coke at the table paid for them...I was there. I told her this, but she insisted. So, either she forgot to mark them off or she deliberately didn't. Who's to say.

What does seem strange is that this always seems to happen to the same people.

Oddly, it's never once happened to me but then again I make a practice of accurately keeping track of what I drink.

Well perhaps it's simply b/c maybe you don't go to restaurants often enough with a group of 20-30 English-speaking people, who come and go at different times during the course of the evening? When I go out with two or three buddies, it doesn't happen to me either, nor has it happened to me with large German groups. It doesn't happen often, but happen it does.

BTW, Keeping accurate track of what you've had will do you no good - that's exactly the problem: At the end of the night when most or all others have left the waiter will come and claim that there are so and so many drinks unaccounted for, and he'll sincerely request that you pay them and won't in the least be impressed that you as an individual can prove that you've paid exactly for what you've had.

@er
ok i concur unless its the owner but what oli and traveller said rings true if in a large group people come and go they just forget to knock a few beers off the bill that someone has paid for and get the last person there to pay for them again. I ask in my first post if there was a way to stop it you being a ex-waitress can gave us some tips

So, if keeping accurate tabs yourself on what you drank doesn't seem to work, then I guess the only thing left to do is to pay as you go, isn't it? Why the continued discussion?

I think the important thing is dont pay for anything you didnt drink. Once waitresses etc see expats not only paying up after an argument but actually volunteering to pay more than they should, then we are deservedly free game.

Pay as you go or tab, it doesnt matter, keep track of what you drink and pay that, and only that, and if the staff try and rip you off stand your ground and dont go back.

i really don't believe that the "ripping off" is occurring as often as some people think. Ther ehave been too many inidences of people "forgetting" to pay either the odd drink or their complete tab for me to believe there is a plot to try and rip off ex-pats.

Whilst I understand why the waiting staff will try and make the last of the couple of drinkers responsible for any forgotten drinks, I don't think this is fair. If the waiting staff can't remember who drunk what (which i don't expect them to in large groups) then they should do pay-as-you go in their own interests.

(makes mental not to myself avoid ER at any future TT event I attend).

I would be very concerned now about being the last one left at the table!! When I left Ganesha last Wednesday, I paid for exactly what Cameron and I consumed (promise ). Was there a lot left that was not paid for?

No Renia- Ganesha is about the only place we go to, that they don't get up in arms if there is a beer or two left over. They take our word for what we pay... why we keep going back there.

Yeah Ganesha is really fab, great food, great service and never a question about the bill - they chuck free whiskey and rum at us at the end of the night anyway, and not the cheap stuff by the taste of it

ganesha is not the only place where there are no probs with the bill

and who wants whisky anyroad?

whisky = vom. fact.

*retches at thought*

What I usually do in large groups is mark my own beer mat, then leave the receipt for whatever I'd paid along with the beer mat with someone trustworthy who stays longer. That way, if the waiter/waitress tried to "rip off" the rest, they'd have proof of what was already paid. Tedious, I know, but it could be a solution.

(makes mental not to myself avoid the kind of event JE might attend).

You have to pay for beer at TT events ?

Since when ?

It happened at Swagat on Christmas Eve, at Alaturka overthirties and at Don Luca and at the Haidhausen night-out - and that's just what springs to mind. Basically at just about every event where there's a crowd. And it's often been Oli who footed the bill. Sometimes a TTer genuinely forgot and the matter was rectified, and it was always then just a drink or two. However, it's hard to believe that TTers regularly 'forget' their meals and drinks. After Alaturka I was really put off being the 'organizer' again - but now I think it really would be best to make it clear to restaurants upfront that we want separate bills and are each responsible for our own drinks and eats.

Or get the waitress / waiter to mark beer mats when a drink is delivered, then you can track it, and they know the score.

The way to do it then, is take your own pen, and mark a different beer mat with less beers and accuse the waitress of marking more than you drank

I haven't been to TT events (yet), but have been likewise messed with by a waitress. It was at a biergarten in a 50/50 English-German group of about 12 people. She insisted we pay for drinks of some Aussies we didn't know who stood behind our table, chatted with us and drank a lot. Since we spoke english with them, we were obviously all together(?). She unhappily relented only because it was delaying her getting around to the other tables as the world cup football match had just ended. It didn't seem to be the touristing Aussies fault either, they were just having fun and may have properly paid.

Theoretically, if you make it clear to waiter/waitress upfront that it's all getrennt (sp?), then why should it turn into a problem other than between waiter and each individual? How can a waiter come to the last one or two people and claim that they drank an extra 10 beers or that they're responsible for someone else who's gone? Separate is separate, right?

Sure it's a lot of stress on the waitress, but isn't that the nature of the job? If it gets out of hand, she can insist on payment anytime and the opening of a clean tab.

(I say "waitress", b/c I've had so few waiters in bars.)

Why should you have to make it clear from the begining that you want separate bills (I know it makes it easier) ? It seems to be a kneejerk reaction from a lot of service people here to immediately go into paranoia overdrive when confronted with a table of English speaking guests.

This has never happened to me in 15 years of drinking with groups of German speakers.

I'm going to bump this one up as the next big night out (Mexican) looms and I've be wondering about this.Every time I've gone out so far on a TT event the person at the end has been stung with something at. I guess the bar bill is the main one but I did get stung on extras outside of beer the other day.

Pay-as-you go does seem a good idea but with a group of 50 I suspect that's going to add to the time required to get your drinks.

Has anybody tried asking everybody to put in 50 cents or one euro as a 'tip' and using this to cover any unforseen extras? I can see there is a danger of somebody then freeloading (I know somebody who used to do this and is now an MP in the british parliment!) but I'm a trusting sort of guy still.

Hey Pas,
The last Mex dinner we had 30 people and the bill ended up being perfect. In fact, no one even had to tell the waitress what they had - she had it already done and calculated. I know this happens a lot though- but I am not worried about it for next Fri. Hopefully we have the same waitress as the service was excellent (as was the food) last time and everyone that was there was in agreement with this. Am really looking forward to it again.

I went out with some friends a few weeks back and the waitress tried giving my friend the entree she ordered along with another entree that she had cancelled(she changed her order before the waitress walked away). The waitress expected her to take both entrees and pay for both of them since she forgot to erase the first one!!! So I think they make these kinds of mistakes quite often and expect you to pay!!!

I'm still hoping someone will contact Jeeves to settle this bill from curry night last week, when someone left without paying for their food. I can understand confusion over the odd beer, but forgetting an entire meal seems very strange to me.

I have made a habit of making a note in my cell phone of whatever I ordered and received. Comes reckoning time I can show the note to the waiter, no problems. This method is especially handy for sit-down dinner events where you start to mingle after finishing your meal.

I think it worked great at curry nights when we had the slips of paper... when we stopped using those, we started running into problems.

I agree with Pas about the Mexican night, my years of experience with Joe Penas is they will try to rip you off every chance they get. One night they actually tried to double charge us, some of my friends left earlier and had paid, but at the end of the night the restaurant kept saying nobody paid. Since then I will not go back there!

That is soooo anal.

I do it too.