I was warned not to use the restaurant's name because we could get sued

But I have the receipts. I'm still in disbelief this happened.

Dear Friends,

I don’t want to go so far as to call it a scam..

But it was also very suspicious and not ok.

This weekend, a restaurant tried to charge my husband and I, and our friends an extra $40 on a $154 check and they almost got away with it.

Here’s what happened.

My husband and I were out to dinner with another couple. Lovely night. Good food. Good company. The kind of evening where you are absolutely not thinking about… math.

The check came. Total: $154 for the four of us.

Each couple handed over a credit card to split it down the middle. Easy.

A few minutes later the waitress brought back two slips. We added our 20% tip, signed our names, and started gathering our things to head home.

And then I glanced down at the paper in my hand.

The math was not mathing.

Each of our bills was for $97. With tip on top, $117.

But wait half of $154 is $77, not $97.

That’s a $20 overcharge per couple. $40 total.

I waved the waitress back over. Politely.

She was surprisingly confident.

“The machine splits it. It’s automatic. It’s right.”

I asked her to please, just humor me and to take out her calculator and divide 154 by 2.

She did.

The answer was, of course, $77.

Not $97.

She stared at the screen. She looked genuinely baffled.

(This is where I hold back on a tangent commentary about the importance of teaching at least BASIC math)

She said she’d be right back.

She returned a few minutes later with corrected receipts and assured us that the original ones “would not be processed” and we would not be double-charged. She had no explanation other than there was a mixup.

I want to believe her.

I am also going to be watching my credit card statement very, very carefully this month.

Why I’m telling you this (and not naming names)

When I told my husband I wanted to write about this, he said:

“Don’t use the restaurant’s name. They could sue you.”

So I’m not naming them. (Hi, lawyers. 👋)

But I do have the receipts.

And the bigger point isn’t about this one restaurant on this one Saturday night.

It’s about how easy it is to not notice.

We had just spent a relaxed hour with friends. The lights were low. We were engrossed in our conversations. We trusted the system. We trusted the “machine.” We trusted the printout the waitress trusted.

If I hadn’t glanced down, and if I’d just signed and walked out, the way I almost did none of us would have ever known.

Tell me in the comments: has the math ever not mathed on your check? What did you do?

The cost of inattention is rarely dramatic

It’s $20 here. $40 there.

A subscription you forgot to cancel.

A “service fee” you didn’t notice.

A check you didn’t double-check because the company was fun and the night was lovely.

It adds up.

Not because someone is necessarily out to get you but because nobody is going to pay closer attention to your money than you are.

So… check the check.

Even at the nice places.

Especially at the nice places.

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