Popular Restaurant Is Being Sued By Man For 'Scam' That Customers Have Been Victims Of For Years
By Mike-Ross
After enjoying a nice time at your favorite restaurant, how do you determine what is a good tip? Do you use a calculator and figure out how much the server should be given? Or do you just pull out a few bucks and leave it at at?
In America, an appropriate tip is usually between 15 and 20 percent of the entire bill. Meaning, if your bill comes to $100 with tax, then you should tip $20 if you’re an honest person. People try to under tip the servers and get away with tipping them less. But 20 percent is the honest amount they should get whether the service was bad or not.
But some restaurants have started putting suggested tips on the receipts to help customers tip faster without having to break out the calculator. You might see suggested tips like 22% = $22, 20% = $20 and 15%= $15. These can help people place a tip on the table quickly. They are automatically calculated based on the total price of the bill. But now one restaurant is under fire for lying to customers about how much 20 percent of the bill is. And they are going to have to pay.
Marcell Goldman is filing a lawsuit against The Cheesecake Factory because they lied about the “suggested gratuity” on the bill. Because he was charged $38.50 as a total, he expected that 20% tip would come to $7.70.
But when Goldman looked at the receipt, The Cheesecake Factory suggested Goldman should tip $15.40 or double the correct amount for 20 percent.
Goldman filed the case as a class action lawsuit against the entire restaurant chain. And in the video below, you can hear how the restaurant responded to their fraudulent practice.
But this lie is something many restaurants employ to make their servers more money.
If you rely on the printed tipping instructions instead of your own arithmetic skills, you could be over-tipping a vast amount.
In the lawsuit, Cheesecake Factory was accused of suggesting that each individual diner pay the tip for the entire bill even if the checks are split among different people.
“The TOTAL was based on the mathematical error perpetrated by Defendant [The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated],” the complaint states.
The popular restaurant has apparently been deceiving customers this way for years.
“The practice has been going on for at least the last four years and at over 200 restaurant locations operated under The Cheesecake Factory mark and at 13 locations operated under the Grand Lux Café mark, and customers have complained of the practice on the internet,” it states.
This lawsuit is not the first time people on social media have warned others about the Cheesecake Factory’s fraudulent practice.
Back in 2015, @HBROFMAN on Twitter shared the following warning, “Watch those #deceptive @Cheesecake factory receipts, their suggested gratuity is based on post tax amount. #Fail.”
After getting exposed, Alethea Rowe, a spokeswoman for the chain defended the company’s tipping police in a statement to Delish.
“All gratuity amounts listed on our guest checks are suggestions only. Guests are free to tip as they please,” Rowe said. “We believe our guests appreciate service provided by our hardworking staff and tip accordingly.”
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