A shocked bar customer revealed the amount he was asked to tip when paying his bill in San Diego.
Gordon Kling showed how when paying his $24.50 bill at Catalina Lounge in Ocean Beach he was presented with a 100% tip option, which would have doubled his total to $49.
Other options on the payment device include an exorbitant 50% tip that would have added $12.25 to the man’s total, along with more moderate 25% and 20% options.
After posting an image of the tipping setup online, many viewers felt the options were a ruse to lure unsuspecting and possibly intoxicated customers into paying more.
“There’s no way someone hasn’t accidentally tipped 100% thinking ‘oh that’s the total, that’s how much I want’. That’s deliberately misleading,” one person wrote.
Godon Kling posted a photo online showing tipping options at the bar.
He mentioned the Catalina Lounge in Ocean Beach, San Diego, as the place where he saw the 100% tip option.
The photo seemed to resonate with followers who believed the bar was trying to scam its customers.
“Haha, that’s why I took the photo…”, Kling replied. “I was drunk and thought I was seeing things. I took the photo to look at it again in the morning and I couldn’t believe it.”
Other users chimed in suggesting that the place was trying to take advantage of people being a little worse off and not realizing they were tipping so much.
“This is hilarious. Catalina Lounge is also a dump. All those bars on PB and OB take advantage of drunk guys on dates,” one user explained.
The man who posted on X, Gordon Kling, was shocked to see the tipping options.
There are pool tables for patrons at the Catalina Lounge dive bar in San Diego.
Commentators suggested Kling take his business elsewhere after the bar antics.
“Even the bars in Pacific Beach aren’t that bad. The most I’ve seen in PB is 35% (I think it’s Mavericks). Not even on a date lol. I was with the guys playing pool,” Kling explained.
“When I saw this photo I immediately thought of Catalina before reading what you said. When I first saw it I couldn’t believe it. Imagine how many drunk people get to 100%,” Bianca wrote in response to the post.
Another X user believed the bar relied on customers misreading options.
“That’s actually smart in a bar: It gives bartenders an incentive to upsell, because the drunker the customer is, the more 100 seems like 10%.”
“It shouldn’t be the customer’s responsibility to provide employees with living wages. The tipping culture is toxic,” added another.
DailyMail.com has contacted Catalina Lounge for comment.
Three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far and most say the minimum wage should be raised to offset the need for gratuity, a new study from CouponBirds shows.
Guilt tipping, that is, paying out of inconvenience or pressure when one would rather not, is on the rise.
This spring it was revealed that Americans spend an average of $453 more a year on tips than they would like thanks to “guilt tipping.”
Consumers say they have been reluctantly paying an average of $37.80 a month in tips because they would feel guilty if they didn’t. According to new research.
A new survey from Talker Research found that more than a quarter of 2,000 respondents said they are “always or often forced to tip more than they would like.”
The average respondent had tipped more than desired six times in the past month alone.
Another recent study found that three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far.
Americans have been frustrated with tipping screens. One Alaskan restaurant offered diners the option to tip 100 percent.
The findings come amid a widespread backlash against “tip inflation”, which has seen tipping culture spread from bars and restaurants to shops, takeaway chains and even self-service machines.
84 percent of those surveyed by CouponBirds argued that the minimum wage should be raised to offset the need for gratification.
Overall, tipping was most common for restaurant services. About 59 percent of consumers said they would tip for dinner, while 43.8 percent would do so for takeout.
This was followed by hair and beauty services, for which 41.1 percent of respondents said they would tip.
About 39.6 percent said they would tip in a taxi, while 36.8 percent said they would tip in a bar.
The place shoppers were least likely to tip was at a convenience store or a grocery store. About 4.9 percent of respondents said they would add a tip in this case.