134% tip
By Lena Kovadlo
@lovebuglena (48034)
Staten Island, New York
October 21, 2025 4:36pm CST
Back in 2018, I went out with my cousins to a popular restaurant in Manhattan called Zuma. I think it was for someone’s birthday. After the waiter brought us the bill we divided the total among everyone except the birthday person. It turned out that each individual would pay $209.
Wow! I definitely didn’t expect to spend that much on a dinner for one. I don’t even think I ate everything that was brought out as I don’t eat pork, shellfish, or seafood.
Since I didn’t have that much cash on me I gave the waiter my credit card. I don’t know how this happened but shortly after I received an email from my credit card:
We noticed you gave an extra generous tip on 02/24/18, for your service at ZUMA NEW YORK:
$89.12 Cost
+ $119.88 Tip
= $209.00 Total
We hope you left this tip because your service was exceptional.
I was very much confused. There is no way I’d leave that much tip, even if the service was Michelin level. That’s somewhere around 134%. I called one of my cousins about it and she didn’t get it, but confirmed that the total that should have been charged to my card was indeed $209. So how did they come up with these numbers?
5 people like this
5 responses
@RasmaSandra (90025)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
11h
That certainly looks and sounds like something if fishy somewhere, I wonder if you can still find out otherwise you overpaid grandly, Could it possibly be that it should have been *9.12 plus tip of 19.88 for a total of $109
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (48034)
• Staten Island, New York
9h
My cousin had told me it should have been $209. Her card was charged the same.
1 person likes this
@kaylachan (80072)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
11h
The math isn't mathing. I am assuming that it was meant to include the tip, and someone got their math wrong when splitting or deviding the bill. You deffently overpaid it sounds like.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (48034)
• Staten Island, New York
11h
Could they have put the tip for the entire party on my card and then figured what the remaining amount would be when deducted from $209 and made that the initial cost amount?
2 people like this
@kaylachan (80072)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
11h
@lovebuglena You know what I think actually happened. When the party devided the bill, they didn't tell the server to split the bill. So the server charged each person indiviually. Your meal only cost 89, so the differance (since you told them to charge 209) was recorded as a tip. When you go to a restaurant, you need to tell staff you're splitting the bill, and to devide it amoung x ammount of people. Otherwise, they'll treat each seperate transaction, just that as a single order. So you didn't pay evenly. Obviously, sea food, pork etc, is going to cost more.
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (48034)
• Staten Island, New York
9h
@kaylachan That makes some sense. Maybe that’s what happened.
2 people like this
@Traceyjayne (5934)
• United Kingdom
11h
It sounds like an awful lot of money to me.
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (48034)
• Staten Island, New York
11h
It is a lot of money for one person.
1 person likes this
