A few years back I had an issue where my credit union’s servers went down for the entire weekend (I didn’t know this until Monday morning) and all of their customers - myself included - were not only unable to get any money out of an ATM, but also any credit or debit card transactions were being denied. The way I found out about this was my tab at the bar wouldn’t go through on my card. Fortunately I had enough cash on me to settle up at the time, but I’ve always wondered ever since what would have happened if I hadn’t.
I’m assuming that whole image of a restaurant making you wash dishes or sweep the floor is outdated in this day of insurance company restrictions and what not, but what is it the average bar or restaurant actually does in these scenarios? Calls the cops? I’m not sure if this would be legal since you can’t be arrested for, say, not paying your utilities or cable bill, but it could be considered more akin to passing off a bad check… legal matters are not my expertise. At any rate it’s not my intention to go on an eat and run spree, just wondering how most places deal with this, particularly if you’re not a regular and they have no reason to believe they’ll ever recoup the amount you owe if they let you leave on a handshake arrangement.
It depends. If they believe you, and you have an expensive watch or gadget on you, they might simply let you leave that for security, to be reclaimed when you come back with money to pay the bill. I knew somebody who had to do that once, when he’d simply forgotten his wallet when he stepped out for lunch. He went back after work, payed the bill, and retrieved his fancy watch.
This has happened to me several times due to being scatter-brained. Last week, I showed up at Pizza Hut to pick up my pizzas without money, so I left my cell phone as collateral while I took the pizzas home and got my wallet. I also left my driver’s license at a bar to go home and get some money. The other time when my CC got denied and needed to pay while on a business trip- I called my girlfriend and she gave her CC number over the phone to the manager who ran it through the machine. (This way actually is probably the most useful as I have several people who I could call and they could give their CC #s over the phone.)
All three times ended with very large tips for the person who was forgiving enough to let me try to figure out how to pay.
Hadn’t thought of that. I suppose they might also just hang on to the credit card, on the assumption that you’re not going to abandon an entire line of credit just to skip out on a $20 tab or whatever. But I imagine it’s all discretionary, and depends on just how much you’re on the hook for as well as how they feel about your trustworthiness.
At least in Florida, this would fall under the “Defrauding an Innkeeper” law. So, unlike not paying your utilities or cable bill, it is illegal to run a tab or order food at a restaurant and then not pay.
So, they likely would call the cops depending on the size of the bill and how much they believed your story. Once the cops arrived, you better work things out with the manager of the place (either an IOU, or have a friend bring money from home, or leave your ID and an honest handshake… or stomething) or you can be taken to jail.
I can see how they might have the legal option of having you arrested, just wondering how often they go through with such extremes. I mean, any given bartender on any given night has at least one or two customers get a little too buzzed and then forget to close out their tab. Most of the time I’m sure the card goes through fine but there’s gotta be times when there isn’t enough of a balance to pay off the tab and the customer never comes back to settle up.
I’d be willing to bet in most circumstances they write that off to the cost of doing business if they try the card again later and it still doesn’t go through. But supposing the bill was high enough to spend time and effort trying to chase the guy down: could they sic the cops on the guy after the fact? Could the cops get enough information from the guy’s cc company to track him down? And if they could, could the bar opt to turn it over to a collection agency instead and have the agency try to track the guy down?
Obviously it depends on the situation and above all, the intent of the customer. Is it an honest mistake, or was he intentionally ordering more than he could afford? And then of course, perception is reality. What do the cops and the manager believe?
And never come back for there credit card? That can’t possibly happen very often. If I were the manager, I would hold on to it all year if I had to, charging even 5 dollars a month if necessary.
They could certainly call the cops, and the cops would have the authority to arrest the person. How much investigative effort was put into actually finding the guy depends on the agency, I’d guess.
That would require a lot of effort and a warrant. Most likely, they could just search their own database for the person’s name as it appears on the credit card. Wouldn’t be hard to get an address and/or phone number with that alone.
I am not sure a collection agency could get involved. I have no idea about them. But without a signed contract or something, I don’t think a collection agency could do much at all. Plus, for the small amount we are talking, a collection agency wouldn’t even bother. Don’t they deal with large amounts and bulk write-offs from CC companies and stuff? If the tab was actually that huge, like in the thousands, then we’re talking a felony and the cops would go get him. He would be made to pay the balance of the tab as part of his restitution imposed at sentencing.
Exactly, and don’t forget that for the past several years there have existed prepaid Visa and Mastercard that only cost like $10 to get started. If the tab was greater than that - and most bars have $10 as a minimum - it would be cheaper to just get a new prepaid card if they didn’t think they could get tracked down for it.
As for collection agencies, I know for a fact that they’ll take a debt for as little as $20 because I know people who have been turned over for shit as minor as not returning a library book or owing late fees at Blockbuster. The minimum is not even in the hundreds of dollars, let alone thousands.
I did that before with my laptop; I had forgotten my bank card at home while working in a café, and when I realized it, I left him my laptop and went to the bank to take money out from the human teller.
Yea, but isn’t that because they have a bulk write off deal with that particular company? A person’s individual debt might be $20, but the company didn’t turn over just twenty bucks to a collection agency, right?
A privately owned bar or restaurant isn’t going to be able to turn over a $20 upaid lunch bill to a collection agency. Or probably even a $100 one, right?
And anyway, how much do collection agencies pay for the debts they take on? What percent are they paying?
Reporting a card as lost is SUCH a pain in the ass. In my opinion, if a person cancels their card instead of calling the bar he was at last night to see if he left it, then this is a pretty good indication to me that he intended to defraud the establishment. If I was on the jury, I’d say guilty. If I was the owner of the bar, I would call the cops.
I once got left as insurance that my mother would come back with cash when her credit card mysteriously didn’t work. (Seriously - she certainly wasn’t in the habit of passing bad checks or anything.) I was, like, nine.
30-40% is pretty typical for collections agencies, but they can adjust that based on the type of debt (business is preferred over personal), size of each collection (larger is preferred) and age of the debt (newer is preferred). (Note: the 30-40% is only only on what’s collected; if the collection agency can’t collect, the restaurant would get nothing and pay nothing, typically).
A restaurant with lots of walk-outs might get a deal going with a billing service that is set up specifically to collect lots of small consumer bills - these are often used by doctors, martial arts instructors, fitness coaches and others. Billing services often have a high monthly fee, but might only take 5-15% of the collections. Some companies do both billing and collections.
I recall an anecdote told by a woman (I forget where I heard it) who was having lunch in a restaurant with her 12-year-old son when she discovered she did not have her wallet. When she offered to leave her son there while she went to get money, the waiter told her with a smile, “Madam, in this establishment we do not take hostages.”
Years ago, I was treating my sister & brother-in-law & others at a very nice family-owned restaurant on their anniversary. Then my credit card failed to go thru. The waiter called me away from the table, so no one else could hear, told me, and asked me to write down my name & address, and then gave me a self addressed envelope to mail in the payment. (They just asked me to write it down – didn’t even ask to see any identification.) I told them I had a check with me, so I could just pay with that if they would take a check. They did, and settled it (and he got a nice tip).
Then I went back to the table, and all my relatives wanted to know what that was all about.
Here in Virginia, we have a “defrauding an innkeeper” statute, but it seems to imply that in order to legally commit the offense, you must have an “intent to defraud” AT THE TIME of ordering, in that you must have, at the time of ordering, intended to skip out on payment, but I could certainly imagine one being arrested on suspicion, and have to go through that ordeal.
[QUOTE=Bear_Nenno;1270249And never come back for there credit card? That can’t possibly happen very often. If I were the manager, I would hold on to it all year if I had to, charging even 5 dollars a month if necessary [/QUOTE]
This happened a lot at a group of bars that are all very close to each other. The person opened a tab and either was too drunk to remember where they were at or got kicked out of the bar for being too intoxicated.
The bar would add a surcharge to all tabs that were not closed out before closing. I’m sure they used part of this surcharge to make up for the occasional card that didn’t go through.
The bartenders were supposed to keep an eye on anyone who started running up a particularly high tab.
They didn’t keep trying to run the card, however. The cards were locked up with the tab.
