Tourists: Beware of Tip Scam

One of the most curious things in the Anglo-Saxon culture, which many Spanish tourists are probably experiencing now, is the concept of tips. In countries such as the United States, Great Britain and most of the former British colonies, for example, tips are not extra bonuses given to reward outstanding service in the hotel and catering business. A tip is an extra premium that the customer is supposed to pay even when he has been treated like dirt.

Thus, in places like the United States and Kenya, the employer can pay their employees a pittance, because the majority of the salary is charged to the customer. And employees at high-end restaurants, clubs, bars and nightclubs in the United States, make a lot of tax-free money because of it.

Insane. A robbery. And a source of distortions.

Why is this crazy? Because the client is morally obliged to pay according to rules that are stricter than those of chess. I know that we Spaniards do not tip, and that we are proud of it. But Americans, for example, are educated to tip, even when the waiter spits in their face. Two weeks ago, I was kicked out of Pesce, a restaurant in Washington, D.C. that is so overrated as to be abusive, with a plain, “Time to leave.” However, being accustomed to tipping, I had already left my 15 percent.

Not only that, tips are about as spontaneous as a Rolling Stones concert, meaning that everything is scheduled beforehand. In theory, the client should tip 15 percent of the price before taxes, but most often, he pays 15 percent of the price after sales tax. In New York, during the dotcom boom, tips rocketed up to 20 percent. Neither the burst of the “bubble” or the “subprime” has made tips descend from there. Thus, the tip always rises.

Why is this a robbery? Because it does not matter how the client has been treated. Actually, I remember that a few years ago, the Zagat restaurant guide expressed astonishment at the fact that people admitted to paying gratuities regardless of the quality of service.

But there’s more. U.S. legislation, for example, allows states to set wages below the minimum wage in the catering sector. In Washington, a waiter generally takes between $2 to $2.50 an hour, with benefits such as health insurance and Social Security not included. Sick days or snow days are also not included for the employee.

Obviously, no one can survive on that in a city where coffee costs no less than $2.50. As a result, a culture has been created in which a waiter expects, as part of his salary, the customer to tip him. The same is true in, say, Kenya. Safari drivers’ salaries are so extremely low that if tourists do not tip them, they don’t make it through the end of the month (and in Kenya, that means starving). This is also true in West Virginia where the law allows employers to literally pay zero dollars to their employees.

This raises a moral question for the customer: Who is the abusive thief? Am I, or is the employer? Typically, the customer is the more decent one, and leaves a tip. But wait! In many U.S. restaurants, the service is already included in the check, so if you don’t notice, you can end up tipping twice.

And, finally, it is a source of distortions. Due to the fact that they earn a pittance, the waiters may literally fight for tips. This prevents the service from improving, and causes the employee to overwhelm the customer by offering him more expensive products. If you ask for an espresso, the waiter at the restaurant Sette, in Washington, D.C., will try to sell you a cappuccino (I speak from experience). On the other hand, the waiters at Steam Café, also in D.C., will force you to pay at 2 p.m. because that is when the shifts change and they want to take your tip, instead of leaving it for those who work afterward.

Restaurants in the United States are also divided by areas. Each area is the territory of a certain waiter. Consequently, other waiters won’t even bother to look at you, or notify the waiter in charge of your table. The reason? They do not receive tips from that table.

There are more inaccuracies. The most obvious are the fiscal and monetary ones. The first one comes from the fact that the U.S. Treasury has estimated that 40 percent of tips are not declared. To correct this, the authorities require each restaurant to add 8 percent of their sales as tips. Nevertheless, this is a faulty calculation. As I said before, the average tip far exceeds 10 percent.

The same is applied to inflation. Tips are a price increase that is often not reflected in statistics, despite hot air, such as that of Pedro Solbes, who attributed the Spanish inflation differential to our allegedly excessive generosity in paying the hotel industry.

What can be done to correct this situation? The most logical answer, from my point of view, would be to get waiters and U.S. restaurant workers to organize into unions and demand what should be theirs.

However, this seems impossible. Among other things, this is because the current system works very well for them and that’s the crux of the matter. A waiter in a popular nightclub can easily make $400 to $500 (tax free) on a Friday night in Washington D.C. working just six hours. With tax evasion out of control, it is likely that this person will face a liability when filing his income tax return. This is the perfect way to seal the vicious circle of the tip scam in the United States.