Brother Marcus Restauarnt Scam?

dean73

The amounts don't even make sense.

For starters, the £12.60 service charge is not 13.5%.

Or, to put it clearer, 13.5% of your £80.80 food bill is £10.91 and not £12.60.

And this 15% 'tax' isn't right either as 15% of £80.80 is £12.12. If you include the £2 charity donation, this 15% becomes £12.42 which I suppose could be rounded up in a slightly dodgy way to £12.50.

All looks very dodgy to me.

TeaAndCrumpets

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82001177#Comment_82001177

Definitely dodgy! Not sure how it’s even possible for the numbers to be so wrong since presumably the bills are auto-generated by the system and not done manually. Although to be clear the £12.50 tax is just labelled “tax” and doesn’t say a percentage. I was just saying that it is roughly 15% (though as you say, it’s actually even more than that!)

born_again

Staff member did not know.. Prompts please can you get the manager to explain.

No manager, then remove charity donation & service charge please.👍

Ergates

Not a lawyer but: I'm pretty sure that putting something on a bill and claiming it's a tax when it isn't a tax is straight up fraud - regardless of what it actually is.

It could be, accurately (I believe) described as "Dishonestly making a false statement to someone knowing it may be untrue, with the intent to make a gain"

MADAT

We were yesterday (17/5) and I normally check bills carefully but I was at the toilet when the bill arrived and as we were in a hurry my wife paid the bill. She did say the bill looked a little strange and we took it away. I checked it on the train home and I have to say was very surprised. Our food bill was £39.70 added to which was a discretionary service charge of 13.5% of £6.00 (should have been £5.36) and ‘tax’ of £6.78. No explanation as to what this tax is for or a % although I calculate it to around 17.08%. This resulted in a total bill of £52.48. There was a VAT amount of £7.41 which would equate to a vat bill of £37.05

This is simply overcharging and as this is high turnover tourist location-as will be the other locations in the chain-it will represent a significant amount on a cumulative basis.

I have written to Southwark Trading Standards to raise a complaint.

la531983

Normally I would say the word "scam" in thread titles is an over reaction but this seems like one of those rare cases where it actually is.

Be interested to know if the person who posted the above went to the same branch as the OP or not.

I see a review went on Google Maps for the Borough Market branch yesterday where this was mentioned.

LightFlare

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82001727#Comment_82001727

The "tax" of £6.78 is pretty close to 15% of £39.70+£6.00

As already sugegsted, the likely explanation is that the service charge was reduced from 15% to 13.5% in theory - but not in practice. In fact is appears to be applied twice. (my guess)

Definitely something that needs further investigation/explanation

la531983

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82001802#Comment_82001802

But if thats the likely explanation why are the staff doubling down and stating it is some form of extra tax that actually doesnt exist in the UK? Someone has clearly briefed them to tell customers this.

Very devious.

daveyjp

Its a way of increasing prices without increasing prices. Publicise widely so everyone is aware of the 'game'.

sheslookinhot

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82001023#Comment_82001023

just for folks to note, a discretionary/optional service charge can be requested to be removed with no conditions attached.