Tipping diner unwittingly tops up the service charge

We've got Mail:Annette from Dublin has been in touch to complain about the increasingly common practice in some restaurants of charging diners a service charge and then cheekily asking for a tip on top of it.

She says that, when you pay by credit card, "it is very possible that you can get billed for service twice."

It happened to her recently in "a very prominent" Dublin eatery she does not name. After hosting a business dinner before Christmas, her husband was presented with the bill for the dining party. "He handed in his credit card which arrived with the total blank along with a column for 'gratuity', so duly added same to the final amount."

On checking the bill the next day, however, he realised that the original bill had service included so he had ended up paying 20 per cent on top of the original bill for service. He contacted the restaurant but was not given a refund of the "extra" service charge as it had been already been distributed to the staff, a manager told him.

"I believe this is very, very, very sharp practice by restaurants as it can only happen if paying by credit card; most restaurants now include their service in the initial bill," she says. "As a result of this we are on major alert for this greedy practice; it leaves a bad taste, I must say."

A failure to communicate

Dan Donovan also contacted us via e-mail to highlight the fact that a growing number of companies don't respond to messages sent over the internet. He was prompted to get in touch after seeing the story of a reader's difficulties with BT Ireland's failure to respond to his many e-mails. "Over the past few years I have found this to be an increasing problem - unanswered e-mails or inquiries sent to service and retail operations," he writes. "The companies I have encountered are not just in Ireland; such lack of concern for the customer also exists with firms in Britain and the US."

Many firms now have an area on their website for e-mail contacts, and sometimes when our reader uses the facility he receives an automated statement confirming that the e-mail has been received but nothing after that.

"An almost equal size situation involves replies from companies that do not answer the question that was asked," continues Donovan. "Such replies involve a thank-you for contacting the firm, and then a quotation from the group's mission statement, followed by a listing of their call centre's telephone number. It is becoming unusual to ask a question and then get a timely and useful reply."

A sour note

A final comment about the inability of the National Concert Hall to sell low-priced children's tickets through its website comes from David Jacobs from Dublin. When we highlighted the issue, a spokeswoman said that when people book online it was difficult for staff to establish that children's tickets were being used by children, leaving the system open to misuse.

"This must surely be the greatest excuse for a non-problem that has been offered in recent times," Jacobs writes. "When tickets are bought at the box office the purchaser is frequently the only person present. Often the rest of the party will wait elsewhere while only the actual purchaser will stand in the queue.

"That is even assuming the tickets are being bought just prior to the performance. The majority of tickets are not even bought on the day of the performance but well in advance of it," he sensibly points out.

And there's more. "Standard practice is that the tickets are checked on entering the auditorium. It is at this stage it will be seen if an adult is attempting to enter on a child's ticket and it makes no difference whatsoever if the ticket is bought from the box office or online. There is no problem here. The NCH will have to do much better than that if it is to retain any credibility for this anomaly," he says.