Saturday, January 5, 2019

Restaurant Scams in Atlanta - II

So this gratuity scam happened to us once more in Atlanta. This time it was Terrapin Taproom in Battery Atlanta. They overcharged us by 4.50$. The waitress must have increased the gratuity value we entered. I called to complain to the restaurant. They said their manager would call me back. I am waiting for her call now. I will update this post once I heard back from them.

Previously Doc Chey's Dragon Bowl overcharged me by 1$. I ignored it since it is too little of value to waste my time and they did not give me the receipt either. I should have asked. But nevermind.

The first time was from an Indian restaurant, which charged us 6$ extra. What can be worse? There was a 20% mandatory service fee (since we were a group of 6), and with the 6$ extra that they overcharged me, it made a 40% tip. But I complained to my bank and got it refunded. If you are interested, please go ahead and read the full story.

It seems this is a common scam in Atlanta. We have encountered this three times so far within less than a year. This scam never happened to us in other ~100 cities during our nomadic life of past six years.

I found from the news that waiters padding tip amounts on credit/debit card payments are not entirely new, or specific to Atlanta. It is going on quite some time in the US, apparently. One waiter even got arrested for this. There is also a question on Quora, discussing this same issue.

If you are a tourist or someone who wants to dine out in Atlanta, make sure to check your bank transactions afterward if you pay by card. Or better, just pay by cash. It is safer to pay by cash if you are a tourist from a foreign country since it will be harder for you to go after them.

If you are a waiter reading this post, please for the sake of God, stop altering the value that we entered as the tip. It is shady and a scam, and you cannot justify it by any means. Don't assume customers are made of cash. Many of us are students or in a tough economic situation. We cannot afford to lose money to scams just because we eat out now and then.


Update: Terrapin did an internal investigation and reprimanded the waitress who scammed the customers. They called me to inform me that this event would not repeat in the future and confirmed that they would refund the overcharge (4.50$) to me and any others (if any others found during their further investigation). I am happy that they made an honest effort to rectify this problem.

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