A parallel situation arises with refueling at gas stations.
In the UK there are always prominently posted signs warning customers to check that they have the means to pay before they refuel. Maybe it’s the same in the US although I don’t remember seeing them there.
So what does the clerk do if you fill your tank and *don’t *have the means of payment ? I assume that they make a note of the car registration number, which will have been recorded on CCTV , and that if you don’t return within a specified time, they track you down and resort to legal means to get reimbursed.
Seems to me that the simplest solution would be to take a photo of the walletless diner. “Just so I remember you when you come back sir…”
I suspect that people would be a whole lot more likely to come back if they knew you had their picture, even if you made no suggestion that you would pass it on to all the other eateries in the neighbourhood. Even taking their name and writing it down would have a significant effect.
When I was a truck driver and someone gave me a hard time - “You are not booked in.” - “You Re too early/late/ wrong day”… etc. I would ask them for their name “so I can tell my firm who it was refused the delivery.” Nine times out of ten, they would cave rather than risk being identified as the obstruction.
I filled up expecting to pay inside with my debit card. Went in and only then found out the payment processor was out of order for debit cards. I didn’t have another means of payment.
I spoke with the manager, left my license and contact phone number, and went to the bank to withdraw the cash. Came back in like 20 minutes. Issue resolved.
In the USA, at least at just about every gas station i’ve ever used, if you don’t have the payment up front, then you don’t get any gas in your car in the first place.
I’m sure there are still some gas stations, mainly in small towns and rural areas, that allow you to just fill up and then walk inside to pay, but every American gas station i’ve used in the last ten years required either that you swipe a credit or debit card, or that you go inside and hand over some cash BEFORE the attendant turned the pump on.
When i first moved to the US, in 2000, this requirement to pay first was quite new to me. In Australia, where i’m originally from, i was always able to fill up and then go inside to pay. Same when i lived in the UK in the early 1990s. And while many Australian pumps now require payment first, when my wife and i spent time there last year, i filled up at a few places where they trusted you to pump your gas before paying.
If the card processor was out of action, it behoved the management to put up signs at each pump saying “Do not draw fuel unless you can pay by cash … cards not accepted at present”.
I have been in a similar situation, but the clerk just printed out a slip with my card number, which I signed as authorisation for them to debit the card subsequently.
No way would I be leaving my license and contact phone number … not bloody likely. I have the means of paying … they don’t have the means of receiving.
We don’t generally have signs like that (I’ve never seen one). What we have instead is that in many areas, gas stations will require you to pay first before pumping if you aren’t using a credit card. There are some gas stations that don’t require you to pay first, but those are generally in more rural and lower crime type areas.
Yes, I remember that now … my residence in the US was prior to 2000, but as I recall, at that time in New England most gas stations did not operate that policy … I think you could fill up and pay subsequently, but my recollection may be faulty.
When we moved to Florida, I do remember that prepayment was a universal practice there.
In those days, it was pretty common to pump first and then pay. That was when gas was a lot cheaper than it subsequently became, and also when card readers at the pump were less common.
I stopped to get gas one day on my way to work. I went in to pay and purchase a Mountain Dew, and discovered that my direct deposit hadn’t hit my account yet. I told the manager what the deal was. The deposit was going to hit that day, but just hadn’t yet. I offered to leave my license, but they just took down the name/number/address, along with my license plate number.
On my way home, I stopped and settled the bill. No harm done.
I would say that at most fast food restaurants the recourse is to not give them their food, since fast food where I am, pretty much by definition, means you pay before you get your food.
But I am assuming that where you are there is some sort of fast food restaurant where you do not pay first.
Where I live, I’m allowed to drive without carrying a drivers licence. (I’m over 26) But… (1) I’m required to present it at the police station withing 7 days, and (2), if I can’t prove identity, they may arrest me instead of issuing a ticket.
I’m not criminal enough to worry about (2), but I’m busy enough and poor enough so that (1) is sufficient incentive.
(Also, they are police officers, not lawyers. They arrest people, not offer legal advice. Some of them think that I’m required to carry a drivers licence)
I did pizza back in the day, delivery, not dine-in, so people had to pay and then they got their pizza. This dude actually took the pizza, said he didn’t have any money, and wouldn’t give back the pizza. we called the cops on him. They told him that if he didn’t give the pizza back it was larceny. He gave it back.
A more common form of “issue” paying was people writing checks that bounced. Once someone bounced twice they went on a list and they couldn’t pay by check anymore. But one honest mistake, we didn’t even ask for the money, we just wrote it off.
I’ve never encountered anywhere requiring you to pay first, but Australia’s a big place so it would not surprise me that there are petrol stations requiring it, particularly if they have issues with drive-offs.
Many, many years ago when I was living in New Zealand, I had an issue where I filled my car and my EFTPOS card declined, despite the fact there was more than enough money in my account to pay for it. Tried a couple of times, no luck - not sure if their line was down or the problem was at the bank’s end, but either way, it wasn’t putting the payment through and I didn’t have any cash in my wallet.
The petrol station (and it was part of a big international chain) required me to leave something worth more than the petrol I’d purchased as collateral and return within 24 hours with the right money or else I’d forfeit the item - there was a proper form and everything.
I left my spare tyre and found an ATM the next morning, got the cash, went back, paid them, got my tyre back, got a receipt, they signed the other bit of the form saying we were square, I got a copy, they filed a copy, everyone was happy.
Of course, that was nearly 20 years ago; I can’t imagine it works like that anymore.
My assumption is that the trope derives from a time when washing dishes was typically a task, not a job. There was no “dishwasher,” in the sense of someone who had no other function in the restaurant. They could also have set the dinner dregs to sweeping floors, or any menial task; they wouldn’t send a regular floorsweeper home unpaid, they’d just save the time of whoever would otherwise have had to do that, that day.
^ The first part of this is still true in some family and collective businesses, where many or all tasks are shared. It might be technically illegal to allow an undocumented, nonpaying customer to work for a night, but it seems unlikely that anyone would ever know to complain about it, if it were to happen.
I remember a famous chef saying that the ‘plongeur’s’ job was one of the most important in the kitchen, and how a good one would be well paid. Plates and cutlery went in the dishwasher, but the big pans had to be done by hand.