In today’s “Lets Screw With A Waitress” news, we have Shaina Brown who works at a Waffle House in North Carolina who was left a $1000 tip by a good samaritan but then Waffle House made her give it back thanks to a policy that was created by someone who doesn’t depend on tips for a living. According to the Charlotte Observer, Shaina works the late night shift and a customer left $1500 on a credit card voucher; $1000 for her and the other $500 for a woman who was eating in the restaurant who looked like she needed it. (Cue me to go sit in a Waffle House in drag and express neediness as I get free refills and play Candy Crush.) Head Waffle House Honcho spokesperson, Kelly Thrasher, explains that Waffle House has some policy that doesn’t let people give good tips unless it’s cash or check because we all know that we carry our checkbooks around with us and our wallets are full of thousand dollar bills. Bitch, please. If someone wants to tip $1000, they can. She says that Waffle House does this in case a customer wants to dispute the tip or ask for a refund. First off, if someone writes in a tip and then signs the voucher, sorry, but it’s mine now, end of story. I don’t care how drunk your ass was when you were feeling all generous and signed it, too bad so sad. I would suspect that Waffle House just didn’t want to pay a processing fee on the charge amount and that’s why they denied Shaina her tip. When the Big Tipper heard about the story, he promptly wrote out a check for Shaina because he knows that Waffle House needs to change their name to What the Fuck House.
Shaina has her tip, the do-gooder has his happy warm feeling and Waffle House now has thousands of people thinking they screwed over a hard-working single mom with two jobs. I guess I can understand their policy of not letting people charge huge tips on a credit card. Maybe they are protecting their customers. I suppose it wouldn’t be out of the question for some less than honest server to add a $1000 tip on a credit card and then quit after getting the money but before the customer realized what had happened. Or what if a thief was in cahoots with a server and the thief used a stolen credit card to leave a big tip for the waiter and then they split at after the server got his money from the? I suppose those things could happen. It’s too bad that Shaina was just being rewarded for doing her so job so wonderfully and it had to be tainted by corporate policy.
I wonder what would happened if Kelly Thrasher was going to get her big Christmas bonus of a $1000, a honey-baked ham and a week supply of waffles but her boss was like, “Oh, wait a minute, hold up, sweetie. We have changed our policy now so if you want that bonus, we are going to need to verify that the company really meant to give it to you. I need you to download some forms and then fill them all out stating what exactly you are expecting for your bonus. Once they are complete, I need you to send that to me in an email, in PDF format, and then I will forward that on to our Christmas bonus department. Once they have confirmed that it was in fact heir intention to give you this money, ham and waffles, I will ask that you file a claim for it. That claim form can be downloaded and sent to me in PDF format. If everything goes as planned you should have your Christmas bonus in June. Thanks, Kelly.” Pretty sure if that’s what happened for Kelly to get her bonus, she’d change that system right quick.
Congratulations to Shaina and thank you to the anonymous philanthropist who was just doing something nice. You know who really gets the shaft in this story? The needy looking lady who was sitting in the restaurant that the man wanted to give $500 to. Nobody knows her name, so nobody wrote her a check for $500. She probably doesn’t even know that she was almost $500 richer. She was just minding her own business eating waffles and lookin’ all needy and shit and she will never get her money. I’m sure some lady in North Carolina is going to come out any minute and say, “Hey I was at that Waffle House recently and I’m pretty sure I was the desperate looking lady that was supposed to get $500. Where’s my money.” If you see this woman, look closely at her. If she has curly Brillo pad hair with highlights, bloodshot eyes and is drinking a margarita, it might be me.
Katie
Unfortunately waffle house policy is to get the customer to swipe the card again for the tip amount (over $250) then hold the tip for 30 fucking days and tax it…
John Harris
So, if it is later disputed and the customer wins the dispute, Waffle House is out $1500 plus additional charge for the “charge-back”. But that’s o.k., screw business, they can afford it. Right?
Lily
My credit card company constantly calls into question transactions at restaurants when the tip is more than 20%, so one day I called and bitched. I said it’s always more than 20%, do you think wait staff at ALL these restaurants are trying to screw me?! It must be legit if it’s ALWAYS happening. They appologized “but there’s nothing I can do.” So I started carrying cash to tip. Fuck it.
Anna
Why do you choose to use only male pronouns generically?
Brea
Why do you care so much? It’s a “he” and he doesn’t write academically.
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S government in 2006 and for many years.
Wylde
OOps just realized that this is already mentioned in BW post. Excuse my useless addition =)
Wylde
Heya all, looks like there’s a little bit of an update to this story. As it turns out, they managed to contact the customer (who turned out to be a wealthy restaurant owner) and he gave the waitress a check for the amount.
http://www.retailhellunderground.com/my_weblog/2014/06/waffle-house-custy-finds-out-waitress-is-denied-1000-credit-card-tip-comes-back-and-writes-her-a-che.html
California Girl
Great story. Going to have to go on the Waffle House web site (do they have one/) and bitch.
Michael Habermehl…is that routine? I mean, how often does someone actually do that? ugh.
BW, congrats on the show. I so wish I were in NYC at that time. I would love to see you in person. Good luck & enjoy it.
Michael Habermehl
We have people who come to a place I work that is reasonably nice and not as cheap as other places, who tip very well, and within 90 days call the credit card company and dispute the charges. If it is over 20%, visa, and American express don’t even investigate, they just reverse the charge.
Nicolas Shreiner
@AB – I’m sure your owner could get the money somehow by contacting VISA and going through the proper channels. Don’t make your boss out to be a hero because he lost $100. He makes that in profit everyday on waffles alone at least.
Taylor
the point is that he didn’t have to cover that $100…. but he did. can’t win either way with people like you ? if he’d gotten it back from the server, he would be an asshole. if he did what he did, “don’t make him out to be a hero, he makes that every day”. lmfao who hurt you? you poor, angsty soul ?
AB
Not to defend waffle house, however, this happened at the restaurant I work at recently. VISA refuted the charge because it was over 20% of the amount of the bill & even though we had an authorized signed credit card receipt that is all they allow. (WTF? How this transaction was pinged but no others I’m not sure. The by-laws of whatever company they’re partnered with I guess.) The difference was automatically deducted from our owners bank account. He didn’t make th e server give the tip back but he lost $100.
R crimaldi
Agreed,happens where i work, i think its crap
BobbyAnn
Good for generous benefactor for writing the check. And yay for Shaina for getting her tip. 🙂