Tip Greed

Do you know that some restaurants charge the waiters a credit card fee if you put the tip on the bill when paying? There was an article in the paper about it Sunday. The owners of the establishment get charged 1.8 to 3.5 % of the total to accept your credit card as payment. They are now passing the percentage of the bill that is a tip onto the waiter by deducting from the total amount of tip. Nice, huh? And you don't know it unless the waiter happens to tell you.

The average a waiter makes including tips in the US was 8.93 an hour as of 2007 according to the Labor Statistics. It did not say how many establishments are doing this percentage thing, but now that its "out in the open" I am betting a lot more will do it now that it's "legal".

I think we should all now go out of our way to place the tip in the waiter's hand-don't leave on the table because you don't know who will get it. Give it to the waiter and say thanks. I used to do this because I wasn't sure if they actually got the tips-now I will make sure they do.