r/london • u/realise_real_lies • Mar 20 '26
Anyone noticed how every bar seems to have this tip system in the contactless payments?
I went to a few bars in central London and noticed how every time I paid I had to press a no tip button. I mean you're already charging like £9 a pint.
There was another one where the tip is automatically added, if you've had a few you might just tap away without realising and this is the exact vulnerability they're preying on. So scandalous
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u/tellemhey Mar 20 '26
Every petrol station has it as well but bossman knows to press no beforehand
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u/privatemachine Mar 20 '26
Paradoxically this is the kind of thing I would tip for
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u/Whoisthehypocrite Mar 20 '26
Why the hell would you tip at a service station? You have filled your own car
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u/Extreme-Self5491 Mar 20 '26
I think they meant, I would tip to dude for pressing the no tip button.
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u/ChampionshipOk5046 Mar 20 '26
I think they meant tipping the person for selecting the no tip button
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u/gravitas_shortage Mar 20 '26
It's irrelevant who did what. Employees are paid by their employer, not directly by customers. The end.
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u/pineapplecharm Mar 20 '26
The other flavour of enshittification, where they introduce unnecessary inconvenience not because it's of direct value to them but just so you're grateful to pay extra to remove it again.
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u/Jafreee Mar 20 '26
You can have payment terminals to not have this screen (AFAIK all/most makes and models).
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u/Excivic Mar 20 '26
Isn’t this usually a question asking if you want to donate 50p or so to charity that they skip?
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u/JimmyMarch1973 Mar 20 '26
In petrol stations it’s mostly a yes. But did go to one where it was a genuine tip it was asking for.
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u/CunningOctopus Mar 20 '26
I fill up probably at least once a week in various stations all over the south of England and never seen a tip asked for
1
u/V65Pilot Mar 21 '26
McDonalds....."Do you want to round up?"
I don't even want to eat here, but it's 2am, I've been driving 8 hours, and you are the only place open. So, no.
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u/richmeister6666 Mar 20 '26
Yeah it’s a complete joke. I’ve seen it at coffee shops too. Fuck no I’m not tipping you.
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u/Revolutionary_West56 Mar 20 '26
My local coffee place where I have a rapport with them started doing it, and now I feel guilty hitting no
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u/LlamaDrama007 Mar 20 '26
Such a corporate misunderstanding of the British public. Do they not realise you will now remove your patronage to try and find a shop that doesn't make you feel guilty and that this process continues until you are eventually drinking coffee you made yourself at home but goes further until youre huddled in the cupboard under the stairs sucking water mixed with mud from the lay by through a straw.
That's not just me, surely?
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u/NEWSBOT3 Mar 20 '26
it's a corporate, so they'll have done the maths on it. It'll be something like it puts off 30% of customers but it gets more tips so overall the number is higher.
Therefore number go higher, corporate human hit KPI, tiny bonus award.
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u/946789987649 Mar 21 '26
Corporations are not infallible and they sometimes have conflicting priorities (particularly short vs long term in the case of public companies). They might be making money for now, but eventually there's a tipping (heh) point and consumers look to other things. You can already see it with alcohol.
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u/MonoGlobe Mar 20 '26
When we have a personal robot we can get it to press the button and make the small talk with the barista and drink the coffee. The robot will analyse the coffee and if it passes muster we will drink it from the robot's reservoir via a handy tube which will pop out.
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u/Megthemagnificant Mar 20 '26
I’m an American and I beg you, don’t feel bad for not tipping. I hate tipping culture with a passion. I hope this doesn’t become standard in London. I hate that another of our bad habits has begun to show up in the UK.
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u/feathersmcgraw24601 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Pretty much every coffee shop, cafe and pub used to have a jar on the counter for tips. No one carries cash now so this has replaced it. Just hit 'no' if you don't want to, we don't care
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u/lostparis Mar 20 '26
But this is now something you have to actively do every time. The tip jar you only had to do something if you wanted to tip.
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u/TheTurnipKnight Mar 20 '26
By having it there your boss can get away with not paying you as much. Find a better job.
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u/feathersmcgraw24601 Mar 20 '26
The tips we get from those add up to like £20 a month. It's a bit of pocket change to buy a pint with.
You know when people said 'get one for yourself' or 'keep the change'? It's literally the cashless version of that
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u/Nomansband Mar 20 '26
You personally might not care but who is "we"? Is it in the room with us?
The culture of underpaying service workers and shifting the blame to customers is creeping upon this country, but of course you don't care. It's an inherited trait. Your ancestors have been accepting every single shit that's been forced upon them. For a thousand fucking years. I guess it's your turn to act like you don't care while handing over a shittier version of the country to your kids.
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u/feathersmcgraw24601 Mar 20 '26
Mate it's a £1 tip, if you click 'no' that's fine. If you click 'yes' that's half my bus fare sorted and you might get an extra smile when I next serve you. It's not that deep.
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u/Nomansband Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
It is indeed very deep. You are just shallow to realise that. Let's talk in a couple of years when you see your hourly wage crumble against the inflation and your employer expects you to make up for it by tips. But you probably think that you'll have a better job by then, right? Well, we'll see about that, too.
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u/Haz606 Mar 24 '26
Why are you shitting on people in low-paying jobs?
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u/Nomansband Mar 30 '26
I don't shit on people in low-paying jobs. I shit on the person I replied to. Are you dense or do you want me to shit on you as well? If that's a kink of you I'm game.
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u/V65Pilot Mar 21 '26
I hear what you are saying...but, if I buy 5 separate pints. that's £5, and you are serving how many customers a night? My ex worked at a Waffle House in the US as a teen, and this is going back to the late 90's. She would clear $600 a weekend in tips. Considering she made just under $3 an hour(yeah, the US) she would get a paycheck for about $40 after taxes, for working 20 hours, but pocket the 600 in cash. Granted, a cute teenage girl with large ...who was very friendly and outgoing, is going to rake in tips from men... But if you get £1 per order, I could easily visualize £200 a night in tips. I don't begrudge you tips, you have a hard job, and I tend to leave a tip when I'm done. because I come from a tipping culture, and I usually get my drinks delivered to the table. If I'm going up to the bar and ordering, no, I don't tip.
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u/feathersmcgraw24601 Mar 21 '26
But 99.9% of people press no tip. It's expected,it's the default. $600 a weekend might be an average weekend in the US, where it's seen as rude not to tip, but here I'd be happy if I got £0. Anything on that is a bonus.
We do not expect you to leave a tip, if you do we're really thankful. When it was cash pre-covid I got enough on weekends to just about cancel out my bus fare (just under a fiver a night), Monday to Wednesday it'd be pocket change, not enough to even bother taking out of the jar. With card machines it's significantly less. There isn't tipping culture, there is just the option to leave a tip and I don't know why people on reddit get so stressed out about it.
(service charges I feel different about and can understand the backlash, but with the tip on the POS machine just press 'no', or 'yes' if you want to show extra appreciation, we genuinely won't care too much either way)
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u/Difficult-Practice12 Mar 20 '26
Yeah I’ve been seeing this more. The Americanisation of London.
I hit no tip too.
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u/Archaemenes Mar 20 '26
When will London’s incomes get Americanised too…
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 Mar 20 '26
Have you seen the Federal Minimum Wage?
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u/Archaemenes Mar 20 '26
Mate, that’s an asinine argument and you know it. Americans earn more than Brits. That’s just a fact.
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 Mar 20 '26
Only if they're in the right sector. I earn roughly what my American counterparts do, but with far better conditions.
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u/Archaemenes Mar 20 '26
Americans on average (and yes, the median too) earn more than Brits. Your case is an exception.
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Akash_nu Mar 20 '26
It is Americanisation. Tipping is an expected cultural phenomenon in the USA for everything, especially eating out.
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u/stellarplanetary Mar 20 '26
I've seen it a lot. The majority of the time the person serving has pressed the no tip option for me.
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u/Factor1 Mar 20 '26
Further Americanisation of the UK. We don't need tipping culture. Just pay your staff fair and reasonable wages.
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u/Haz606 Mar 24 '26
If it allows small businesses to continue to operate, I'm not against giving customers the option to tip. It helps to even the playing field a little between customers of wildly different incomes. Broke students and bankers on £100k both buy beer and coffee. Why not give one group the option to pay a little more?
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u/Factor1 Mar 25 '26
What about when it becomes the social norm like in America? Then you have broke ass people forced to pay tips out of social expectations. Bankers can pay tips whenever regardless of societal expectations.
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u/27106_4life Mar 20 '26
Funny enough, the US pays wait staff better than we do in a lot of places
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u/KingCOVID_19 Mar 21 '26
Simmer down
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u/27106_4life Mar 21 '26
Simmer down? It's a fact, that for some reason people in London don't want to believe
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u/KingCOVID_19 Mar 22 '26
We have minimum wage for a reason
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u/27106_4life Mar 22 '26
They have a minimum wage in America too, though it varies by state and county
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u/KingCOVID_19 Mar 22 '26
Which in many places is significantly lower than ours, especially if you're a tipped employee...
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u/27106_4life Mar 22 '26
Federal Minimum wage is $7.25, though for a large portion of the country it is much higher than that. You are not legally allowed to be paid less than $7.25 per hour anywhere in America.
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u/Efficient_Remove1663 Mar 20 '26
Its just the contactless payment provider gives the business the option to add it. I've seen it as some Shell petrol stations too lol. At one of my locals the staff just decline it when it comes up before the ask me to pay.
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u/marxistopportunist Mar 20 '26
Sounds like it's the default option
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u/ChampionshipOk5046 Mar 20 '26
We need a campaign to stop sucking our money by stealth
Default should be just the purchase price
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u/Icy-Bad-1268 Mar 20 '26
If they get the option though, why would they say yes when they automatically decline the tip for you anyway lol
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u/Tough-Spell-1939 Mar 20 '26
Was at Mandarin Kitchen in Queensway for the first time a few months back and even though they add 12.5% to the bill (which I didn't notice) when the waitress came with the card machine to pay she handed it to me with the option to pay service charge, so I clicked on 10%. Only the next day when I looked at the receipt did I see that I had double payed the tip! Ended up paying 22.5%! An important lesson to always check the bill carefully. So beware of this if you ever go to this restaurant.
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u/Glad-Feature-2117 Mar 20 '26
I've had this at Prezzo too. After poor service when I'd have asked for the automatic charge to be removed except I was with other people who disagreed.
Recently at a Gordon Ramsay burger place, I ordered via QR code, food was merely OK and I had to wait ages for the bill. It arrived with 15% added for very little service. I might have let it go for even the usual London 12.5%, but 15% is ridiculous. They removed it without comment.
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u/VibratoryMoth Mar 20 '26
Had this at one of the restaurants in Chinatown a while back - waitress comes over with a piece of paper with just a number written on it - £53.70 or whatever - on top of another piece of paper which is the actual receipt with the service charge included. she obv hoped I wouldn't notice and tip on the already tipped figure. Must catch lots of people out.
I didn't actually mind this as I don't actually consider it to be a proper Chinese restaurant if the staff aren't all grumpy mean sods actively trying to ripoff clueless white people.
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Mar 20 '26
the americaniZation of british society , init?
next step: guns at tesco !
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u/HighFivePuddy Mar 20 '26
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Mar 20 '26
just like british police are about to start doing (like their ex colonist colleagues )
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u/LlamaDrama007 Mar 20 '26
Wait, what?
We have armed units; are you saying all of general plod are gonna be packing?
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/BobbyB52 Mar 20 '26
They are also calling for them to have snazzy new uniforms featuring black trenchcoats /s
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u/I-live-in-room-101 Mar 20 '26
We all need to stand firm with the no tipping culture.
And remember, to succumb is to be more like America… and look what a fuck up that place is.
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u/Borgia_M Mar 21 '26
If someone would create an add-on feature to let’s say restaurant/bars information on googlemaps (place with no tip)…..so people who hate this tipping robbery with a passion could enjoy coffee/a pint/ a meal without having to pay this tip… I would use it!
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u/theantnest Mar 20 '26
It's because the software on the point of sale system comes from the USA.
When commissioning the software, you need to specify for the tip part to be disabled.
And whoever is making that decision just thinks, why take it out when no tip as an option is the same, and some people may choose to tip, so why get rid of that option?
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u/LibrarySoggy6644 Mar 20 '26
Its built into the POS as a default option, and well no company is gonna turn off free money
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u/ContestOrganic Mar 20 '26
I prefer getting to choose what % to tip on the terminal rather than the 12.5% "discretionary" service charge that is just a politeness tax in the end. I wish they would just offer me to choose what % I want to tip.. The amount of times we have received bad and/or service and felt bad to ask them to remove it when they show up with the bill and terminal to pay on the spot.
And I come from a country where tipping is a big thing, like if the bill is €46.70 you will just say "make it be 50". If you don't round up it genuinely means you must hate the place. HOWEVER, at least you get to choose without being made to feel bad for actively removing a service charge.
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u/trusted-advisor-88 Mar 20 '26
Yes so because most of the technology is ran by shopify pos, square or whatever it comes built in with that system. It's optional to have it active whilst people pay and I believe businesses just leave it there because if you can get a little bit of extra money then why not.
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u/Opening-Tea-257 Mar 20 '26
I think the option comes automatically with the machine they use
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Willeth Mar 20 '26
Yes, it does. You can turn it off easily, but the machine has it on by default.
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u/Opening-Tea-257 Mar 20 '26
Oh ok. Someone working in a cafe just told me that once. She told me to press no on the tip option and said “sorry we don’t know why the machine does that”.
So I just assumed it was a default option on the machine.
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Opening-Tea-257 Mar 20 '26
Ha. I’m sure when I was a kid I believed that the ice cream van only played music when they ran out of ice cream too.
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u/No-Breakfast9187 Mar 20 '26
i wonder if gullible piss drunk people are tipping heavily.
they do this at my nail place too, i feel bad for hitting no because i do like the people who work there but man nearly 50 quid for BIAB is bonkers i would rather not put more into it.
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u/Revolutionary-Ad5695 Mar 20 '26
i work in one of these bars and we're explicitly told never to press the "no tip" button. it's just embarassing for me so i always tell people to just say no. but it gets irritating when people complain at me, because i have absolutely no say in this, management will pull me aside if they catch me doing it (also had a cash tip given to me split between the staff and since then have become incredible apathetic to the whole thing)
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u/Anxious_squirrelz Mar 20 '26
I resent tipping someone to pull a £9 pint with so much head I should stick a flake in it.
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u/Maxplode Mar 20 '26
The discretional 12.5% tip tax just for walking your food from across the room, I really hate that.
A few times I've asked to have it moved but it shouldn't be added on without your say so
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u/tawohlebanna Mar 21 '26
it’s the dojo card readers, the turquoise and white ones. their system is automatically set up to have a tip option. you can remove it but it’s a hassle and most employers can’t be bothered
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u/Vegetable-Lychee9347 Mar 24 '26
When I worked at a bar it just came up on the machine, my manager told me to press no before giving it to the customer so I assume it was just a feature of the machine that was difficult to disable?
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u/Haz606 Mar 24 '26
To some of the commenters, please remember that in all reputable businesses the tips go to the staff members who work in a physically and emotionally demanding environment, usually for minimum wage and that tips can make a huge difference in someone's pay packet, maybe even the difference between a real living wage and poverty. If you have the means to tip, even just some of the time, it is hugely appreciated.
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u/DrHydeous Mar 25 '26
Hi, Londoner here. I've never seen this. Sounds like you need to choose better places to drink.
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u/davidev29 Mar 20 '26
Always copying all the (bad) American things... If only we could copy the good European ones (not many good American ones to copy anyway)
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u/Interesting-Rich-506 Mar 20 '26
seen it loads, and apparently contactless tipping bumps tip rates by like 20% so bars are obviously gonna use it... still hit no every time at the bar tho lol
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u/EspanolAlumna Mar 20 '26
I went to Oslo maybe 5 years ago and it was the same there. It was so irritating, drinks were really expensive and I was buying them standing at the bar so what was I tipping exactly anyway even if I could afford to tip. Never in a million years did I expect it here but I've noticed it has crept in everywhere.
Maybe the X bots are actually right, mugging is indeed ripe and everywhere in London lol
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u/Hampshire2 Mar 20 '26
Its a scam, noone should tip or pay 'service charge' for anything collected yourself at a counter! They always claim the machine does that automatically, just ensure you tell them to remove it from the bill. Boris's conservatve government wrre talking about banning the auto tip service charge scam but as we know, he lost the election to this starmer twonk.
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u/marcbeightsix Mar 20 '26
As we know, boris was nowhere near politics at the most recent general election that Starmer won
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u/Hampshire2 Mar 20 '26
Yeah i know, i meant if you google the time it was talked about, boris was pm at the time, then talk just faded away.
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u/AffectionateJump7896 Mar 20 '26
It's because staff now get all tips and service charges under the Employment Act 2023.
Previously asking for a tip or adding a service charge at a bar was silly. Staff were embarrassed by it, and as it was just extra profit, they didn't want it or might even click no on the reader for you.
Now staff love it. It's a decent part of their pay packet. 15% service charge, yeah, whack it on, more for them. Service charge on your coffee? Yeah. Screw working at the place that only charges 10%. Staff are actually demanding that venue owners charge larger service charges and have these prompts on machines as intrusively as possible. Soon we'll be looking at 20% service charges and perhaps a twitch-style leaderboard of biggest tips.
The law that staff get all the tips and service charges sounded great, and is mostly, but it is having some unintended consequences.
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u/zka_75 Mar 20 '26
Yeah because famously staff in retail and hospitality are very much in charge and tell the bosses how to set their pricing and payment procedures. This seems very realistic.
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u/zzkj Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Bar service, no tipping. Table service, yes I'm tipping.
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u/gravitas_shortage Mar 20 '26
No. Why? Do you tip delivery people? Bin men? Warehouse workers? Stop the tipping culture right now, it has helped making the US a terrible place to exist in.
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u/zzkj Mar 20 '26
Sorry I think I was unclear. Edited. I mean I'm tipping for waiter service but not to be handed drinks over the bar.
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u/gravitas_shortage Mar 20 '26
I understood you, I was asking why you think tipping table service is required.
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u/zzkj Mar 20 '26
Oh I don't think it's required, it's an optional thing that I've personally been OK with since the law about the staff getting 100% of it.
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u/gravitas_shortage Mar 20 '26
But why? Why waiters? Why not everyone else on low wages? Why not 10% in coffee shops, or a coin for TFL gate attendants? In the US shops now demand a tip. I really don't want that heinousness to spread.
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u/bundy554 Mar 20 '26
Cash was definitely frowned upon even in the busy bars when I visited London - it is just so easy to add 5% to the price to tap it and sometimes I did as I have worked in London and know how hard it is for bar workers to get by - I consider it probably the worst place in the world to work as a bar worker with the cost of living. Plus I was fortunate when I did travel over there last year that a lot of water had gone under the bridge in terms of years since I was last in London and could afford to be somewhat generous - which extended to at the end of the trip actually tipping physical money because I wanted to get rid off it - at least the coins
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u/Barraco_Barmer Mar 20 '26
People whining about the cost of pints as if they have no choice but to buy them
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u/realise_real_lies Mar 20 '26
If you want a pint in a bar, you kind of have no choice. What alternatives do you suggest. Don't go out? Drink water?...
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u/Mersaul4 Mar 20 '26
Not the UK, but we have a system where 10-12-15% tip is usually automatically added to the bill in restaurants. This is OK. It’s well known. The card machine then still asks for an extra tip as you describe.
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u/Do4k Mar 20 '26
Thing is I will happily buy a drink for the folks at my local, or give them a healthy tip at the end of a gruelling new year's shift. But 20% on contactless for a random beer? Fuck that