A California man has revealed the shocking amount he was asked to leave as a tip while paying his bill at a dive bar in San Diego.
In a posting to X, complete with photographic evidence, the bar drinker showed how upon paying his $24.50 tab, he was presented with a 100% tip option, which would have doubled his total to $49.
The ruse to lure unwitting, and possibly inebriated patrons into paying more after racking up a drinking tab appears to be deliberate.
Other options on the mobile payment device include an extortionate 50% tip which would have added $12.25 to the man’s total, together with more moderate 25% and 20% options.
The man, who posted on X under the name Gordon Kling, named the bar in question as Catalina Lounge in Ocean Beach.
The photo appeared to resonate with followers who believed the bar was deliberately trying to scam its own customers.
‘There is no way somebody hasn’t accidentally tipped 100% thinking that “oh that’s just the total, that’s the one I want”. That’s deliberately misleading,’ added Matt Breen.
‘Haha that’s exactly why I took a photo…,’ Kling responded. ‘I was drunk af and thought I was seeing things. I took the photo to revisit in the morning and was in total disbelief.’
Other users chimed in suggesting the venue was attempting to prey on people being slightly worse for wear and not realizing they were tipping so much.
‘That’s hilarious. Catalina lounge is a dive, too. All these bars in PB and OB pray on drunk guys on dates,’ explained one user.
‘Not even the bars in Pacific Beach are this bad. The MAX I’ve seen in PB is 35% (I think at Mavericks). Not even on date lmao. I was just out with the boys playing pool,’ Kling explained.
‘When I saw this pic I immediately thought of Catalina before even reading what you said. When I saw it there for the first time I was in disbelief. Imagine how many drunk people hit 100%,’ wrote Bianca in response to the post.
Another X user believed the bar was relying on customers misreading the options.
‘Actually that’s clever at a bar – gives servers an incentive to increase sales b/c the more drunk the patron gets the more that 100 will look like 10%.’
‘It should not be up to the customer to provide livable wages to employees. Tipping culture is toxic,’ added another.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Catalina Lounge for comment.
Guilt-tipping, paying a tip out of awkwardness or pressure when you would rather not, is on the rise.
This spring it was revealed how Americans are spending an average $453 more a year on gratuities than they would like to thanks to ‘guilt-tipping.’
Consumers say they have paid an average of $37.80 a month on reluctant tips because they would feel guilty about not doing so, according to new research.
A new poll by Talker Research found that over a quarter of the 2,000 surveyed said they are ‘always or often forced to tip more than they would like.’
Typically, the average respondent had tipped more than wanted to six times in the past month alone.
Another recent study found that three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far.
The findings come amidst a widespread backlash against ‘tipflation’ which has seen tipping culture spill out from bars and restaurants and into stores, takeout chains and even self-service machines.
84 percent of respondents to the CouponBirds survey argued that the minimum wage should be increased to off-set the need for gratuity.
Across the board, tipping was most common for restaurant service. Some 59 percent of consumers said they would tip at dinner while 43.8 percent they would for food delivery.
It was followed by hairdressing and beauty services – which 41.1 percent of individuals said they would tip for.
Some 39.6 percent said they would add gratuity in a taxi while 36.8 percent said they would tip at a bar.
The least likely place shoppers would tip was at a convenience store or Bodega. Some 4.9 percent of survey respondents said they would add gratuity in this instance.