Drinks Charge

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Amazing how views can change. will you have to tell your friend or otherwise he will be wondering why the item does not appear on his credit statement.
 
it's not fair that the restaurant loses out
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Well if their staff are incompetent then they should. They made the mistake, they should pay.
 
Joe Q Public said:
Well if their staff are incompetent then they should. They made the mistake, they should pay.
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So you have never run a struggling business then..and you dont know where the mistake happened, nor is there any way to know, so why not suggest that someone pays for what they consumed. If you ran a struggling business you'd be more understanding.
 
Actually no. I would not be. If I ran a business like that restaurant I would deserve to be struggling.

Tell me what legal basis you have for your view that the diner should pay for their mistake?
 
David_Dublin said:
and you dont know where the mistake happened
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Actually, we do. The restaurant made the mistake by giving out the drinks before confirming payment. They should have run the credit card details into the machine before bringing out the drinks to avoid any problems.
 
Wow the knives are out!! I love it

@Joe Q Public:
"what legal basis" - I made no suggestion that my view was legally based, in fact, quite the opposite. My suggestion was to be fair to the restauranteur.

"If I ran a business like that restaurant I would deserve to be struggling" - yes, trying to charge someone for something that they have had, the cheek! you have no idea how the run their business, this is an isolated example, and unnusual situation.

@Complainer
"The restaurant made the mistake by giving out the drinks before confirming payment. They should have run the credit card details into the machine before bringing out the drinks to avoid any problems. " - I agree with that. Actually, if we're getting all technical here, rather than being reasonable and fair, they should not have taken an order over the phone to be paid by a CC at all. The fact that they did suggests that they were trying to accommodate somebody doing something nice to someone. Imagine that??!!
 
One thing I would say is that the restaurant should have handled it better. Having decided that they were not going to offer you the drinks on the house, they should have told you what the issue was, and given you the option of trying to get the correct CC details or accepting payment yourselves.
 
Bottom line is that adding it onto the bill without saying anything to the customer is very bad manners and whether intentional or not is downright sneaky.

The OP then mentioned
"The situation was getting embarrassing and that was why I paid and left. In fact the owner actually said to me that he was giving great value in his meal prices and did I expect him to buy me drink as well. At that stage I felt it better to move on."

Further examples of bad manners/snottiness from the restaurant for something that was not the OP's fault.

However, the adding it to the bill with no mention of it would be enough for me to side with the customer.
 
David_Dublin said:
One thing I would say is that the restaurant should have handled it better. Having decided that they were not going to offer you the drinks on the house, they should have told you what the issue was, and given you the option of trying to get the correct CC details or accepting payment yourselves.
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Exactly my point...

Why do we have to start talking about a 'legal basis' when a quick chat and a bit of honesty would have gone so much further.

I would imagine (and I may be wrong here, but I'll postulate nonetheless) that had the restaurateur approached frankmac immediately the card was found to be inop., explained the situation and asked if he would like to give his friends contact details or if it was alright to add the charge onto the bill this would never have registered in frankmac's mind as an issue worth discussing and none of us would be...
 
I would agree to disagree with you there.

It was their problem and not the OP. It is a bad business model to accept drink orders over the phone and serve them without securing payment first.
 
PetrolHead said:
It amazes me how people get into talking about liability and contracts and obligations... it was a round of drinks.

Frankmac - answer me this - if staff had served you the drinks and then come over to you to quietly say "we're very sorry, but we've had a problem processing the credit card given to us over the phone and we didn't take the contact details of your friend... would it be OK to put the drinks on your bill or shall we call the gentleman back?" what would your response have been?

The issue here is not the value of the drinks but the way in which the situation was handled. Perhaps the restaurant staff can be excused for being busy or maybe different staff dealt with each transaction and confusion reigned.

My point however is this...

How many conversations about obligations and contracts and liabilities etc etc etc would have been avoided by having that 'quiet word' at the very beginning of the situation...?
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Havnt checked the thread for a while and amazed to see the debate it has brought about.

In answer to your question Petrol Head, yes if they had done that i would have happily allowed them to put the cost of the drinks on my bill and paid for it.

The issue was never about the money but the way in which the management dealt with the situation, and the sneaky way in which they applied the charges.

Thanks again for all the views.

Frank
 
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