Why you shouldn't tip restaurant servers on your credit card

by Kitty Bean Yancey, travel.usatoday.com
November 30th -0001

My recent story on tipping and traveling generated a lot of comments and feedback.

Here's one aspect I have heard about that's news to me.

When you charge a meal on a credit card, if you want the servers to be assured of their fair share, you should leave the tip in cash, more than one server has told me. (Thanks, sharp-eyed readers for telling me I messed up this sentence earlier.)

Here's why, summed up by Steve Dublanica, a former Manhattan waiter and author of the waiterrant.net blog and Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity:

1) "Server can take that money home at night. When tips are distributed by check (often later) it's never, ever accurate. Not malicious intent usually, just lazy bookkeeping. But sometimes its greedy evil." (Some eateries do give servers their credit card tips when they leave, but then again, some servers say those totals don't seem right.)

2) "Some owners outright steal tips," Steve says. "Usually happens in a pool house (note: that's when servers pool their tips among themselves and probably busboys, and everyone shares.) Another ploy, he says: "using tips to illegally pay for non-table serving employees -- pastry chefs, banquet managers. Also, owners have been known to create no-show jobs and pay their daughters, drivers, siblings a full waiter cut out of the tip pool. Illegal."

3) "Owners have forced waiters to give the kitchen a cut of the tips. Illegal. Instead of paying their hardest-working (kitchen) employees more, quite a few owners will steal it from the waiter. This is an old story."

4) "Some owners make the waiter pay the credit-card vig (fee charged by card companies per transaction) on their tip only. So if my tip is 20 dollars I may have to pay 60 cents. But some owners will make you pay the entire vig on the whole check. Illegal."

RELATED:  Do you tip the airport rental-car shuttle driver?

Here's a story from WCCO-TV in Minneapolis on a restaurant chain that decided to take 2% out of the waitstaff credit-card tips. Servers said it may not sound like much, but it can add up for people who may be making $2-$3 an hour in wages (federal minimum wage for servers is $2.13) and rely on tips. If you are interested in state guidelines for wages for tipped employees, check out this Department of Labor chart.

P.S.: Here's another argument for paying cash. I just recalled an experience I had in which a bartender took my card, disappeared into a back room with it, though there was a credit-card machine at the cash register. A few days later, a set of tires showed up on that card, and I hadn't bought any. My bank told me unscrupulous employees can take impressions of your card or take your info and use it to rip you off. I was advised to keep the card in sight, though that is often difficult.

What do you think, readers?

Original Page: http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2012/08/why-you-shouldnt-tip-restaurant-servers-on-your-credit-card/825058/1

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Victor Cuvo, Attorney at Law

770.582.9904

(sent from new iPad)