Paid and then looked at the bill and realised that an ‘optional charity donation’ has been added. Spoke with the server and the jolly floor manager who chirped ‘of course it is an optional donation’ and went on to offer a pound coin in return. The jolly lad got a bit baffled when I asked for an apology and an explanation why it wasn’t optional to us! When I said I screen charities before I decide to donate and he was unsure what that meant. Promptly guilt tripped me on to ‘it’s all for a good cause, you know, homeless people’. I gave up. Apparently they couldn’t refund the card and the higher management will call and arrange.
Nice little scam I say. I bet they apply for a tax refund when they process the donations to the charity on their own books.
Sorry the food was mediocre!
by 01412114000
46 comments
They offered you a refund, so it wasn’t mandatory? You don’t look at the bill before you pay?
~~They also made 12.5p of service charge off that by the looks of it.~~
You asked for the donation to be removed and they gave you £1 back. I am not sure what was wrong.
On a side point, you couldn’t spare £1 for a charity, when you were happy to spend £17.50 on a burger… come on man.
[https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/3954261](https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/3954261)
Fuck me those are some good stats, higher donations than income?
and reduced the value of your donation by 20% unless you bother to gift aid £1… I’d much rather give a meaningful chunk of change at once so I can ensure its value is gift aided
Saw this at a restaurant this week. Chatted and laughed with my family about who would refund a £1 charity donation after seeing it. Of course a reddit user is the type who would….
Edit: the downvotes say it all. A group chronically online people who have social anxiety and get upset about telling someone to take £1 off their bill. The net gain of potentially 100’s thousands going to charity (even if its not the most perfect charity) is better than you feeling awkward because lets be honest, nobody is going home and manually donating £1 if they were asked to instead of it being added to the bill.
Sneaky little less than < 100% of service charge is shared by our staff with, a typo at the end >
For future reference, the traditional method is to look at the bill, check you are happy and then pay. Melon.
The amount of guilt tripping in these comments. The bill should be the price of the things I ordered. Service charges, charity donations, and fees for using paying with the QR code the encourage you to use should all be illegal. Increase the price of the food as necessary so we know the real price of things Instead of tried to hide them so people miss them.
I’ve noticed at a few bars and cafes recently the staff kindly skip the “tip” screen for you before letting you pay. Much appreciated. Unless I can bypass the wait staff and serve myself they should be getting paid a proper wage and it should be built into the cost of the food.
What a fucking load of expensive bollocks.
The image literally says on it ‘draft receipt’ and ‘optional donation’ and when you queried it they proffered the £1 back – seems optional to me….
ONE POUND? Jesus man
Please remove Service charge and donation.
Pay.
Walk out
When I go to a restaurant I want to pay to eat and drink, I can do my charity donations on my own time. I don’t want them to offer me a haircut or a music recommendation or a foot massage either.
This is sneaky shit designed to reduce their tax liability. They should leave a sumup machine at the door if they want to make it actually optional.
I am totally with you on this. If I want to make a donation, I go make a donation. How would they feel if you said to them “I am not paying for the burger and fries, that money is going to a charity of my choice.”. I am sure they would totally call the plods on you.
Jesus, this again. Can’t someone make a new sub where everyone in a flap about charity donations can winge at eachother and stop cluttering up normal discussion subs 😐 it’s so dull guys.
Edit: lol. OP says in previous posts they are a plastic surgeon, drives a Mercedes and has grown nearly £40k in shares. And is quibbling over £1 to a charity that supports homeless people. Incredible.
In my youth I lived on Cranks takeaways and eating in at Mildreds. My late partner was a vegetarian, so I had a huge affection for the place. These days it feels like it has reached a price point above its value; for what they charge, the food really should be better.
Living in central London, we see first hand the dedication of people who work with those sleeping outside. I donate to [The Passage,](https://passage.org.uk/) but I would probably pay the quid too.
El Pastor in Battersea charges £1 Cover Charge per person on top of the 12.5% service fee. Unfortunately I only noticed after i’d paid
Burger & lobster do the same thing.
I thought the portions at Mildred’s were tiny, had to pretend I was full and the people I was with wanted to share.
I have stopped going to places that do this.
£19.90 for kiri hodi?????
encountered this in the happenstance on saturday in st pauls, also a fractionally higher that average service charge to boot of 13.5%
Love how it says all our service charges are shared with the staff …..not the waiters…..the fuckin staff including owners is say. It’s just another way of adding more to the bill
Are you a laugh?
This business can absolutely just go fuck themselves.
£41.30 it is
Not condoning this practice but I can say with some confidence that I don’t think there’s any tax advantage in this for them. Either it’s their income in which case it’s taxed in the way in and deductible on the way out, or it’s never theirs and always the charity’s in which case it’s not taxed on the way in but not deductible on the way out.
So it’s bad that they didn’t present this as an option but AFAIK not a tax fiddle.
That’s not how corporation tax works. Yes they may be deducting the £1 donation to the charity as an expense, however they also have to declare the £1 they collect from you as income. The net effect of this transaction on the company’s tax bill is 0.
Mildreds was good when it was a bunch of hippies on greek street. 17 quid for a burger seems wrong.
Lina Stores in Soho did this too. Infuriating. Asked them nicely to take the donation off the bill, and the server did that immediately and brought over a new bill, no problem.
<100% of service charge is shared by our staff.
I know there’s another > at the end and someone would say it’s just formatting, but it literally reads that less than 100% of service charge will be shared, which could be 0%.
This is the part where you tell them to take the optional extra back off the damn bill!
I wouldn’t mind if it was some kind of actual optional extra that you opted into rather than having to opt out of.
I have set charities I give to every month by DD, but I’ll say yes every now and again at a checkout, or empty my pockets of change if I see a collection pot if I’m in feeling it that day. But it should be my choice to do it, not a declaration that I choose not to do it.
If they’re so keen on charity they can donate without you’re involvement
A restaurant which serves Korean burgers and paratha? They just want to tick all the boxes right?
100% agree. It’s my business when and where I give charity. I am also very intentional about my charity donations and I don’t like donating to organizations I’m not familiar with. This should be made illegal. All I should be able to see on my bill is price of the food and the vat breakdown that’s it.
I love giving to charities. But… I never ever give to any middle man. Why, because they will take a percentage of that donation. In many cases, they take a bigger percentage than the amount they’re donating. So I’ll happily give, but if it’s not the actual charity themselves. Then I want to know the charity number, so that I can try to find out who and what they’re giving. So tacking on an “optional donation” somehow doesn’t seem legal or ethical if it’s not been verbally explained to you. But, if 100% is being donated to a charity, and I’ve been told about it, then I’m all for it.
so mediocre! after dinner my friend ate a cookie because the food wasnt good. the waiters wouldnt allow her to eat this small cookie as it was not vegan.
I’m not paying service charge or the donation. I’d say its unauthorised charges and do a chargeback from the card company.
I’ve seen this posted here before.
This donation crap needs to stop right now, as does any “optional service charge” already added to the bill.
I stayed at a hotel in Bath. We paid in advance for the room for one night. Upon arrival they took an extra £100 deposit for the room. This felt insulting but whatever. Upon checkout they only wanted to give us around £60 back as the difference covered service charge for staff. We kicked up a fuss but were made to feel awkward. They were literally putting their hand in my pocket! It was outrageous and will never stay there again on principle.
Why didn’t you take the quid? Problem solved.
Well their google review is about to get fire bombed with one stars! Unleash hell internet! 😅
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