Why are we allowing ourselves to be ripped off by the hospitality industry through service charges? - Sarah Todd

Such stealth taxes are an example of rip-off Britain and the way our nation has become so soft people are sleepwalking into handing over their hard-earned money without asking any questions. Not wanting to raise their head above the parapet, to make any fuss.

It feels good to leave a cheerful chap or grand smiling lass a fiver’s tip for a job well done. But nobody should walk around like a sour Susan and expect it on a plate.

When our daughter was about 14, she had a little waitressing job. She would chatter away to people and tell them where to go for a walk, or answer any other questions being a local girl, and appreciative diners often left a fair few notes. She never saw any of it, with it supposedly going into a pool and divided out. It never was.

This mother, much to her father’s chagrin, used to encourage her to just pop it in her apron - as it was her who had been pleasant and earned the tip. But she wouldn’t and dutifully handed it over, wrongly believing the team in the kitchen or those behind the bar would be getting a share of it.

So it’s a system that needed sorting and there is a new law, The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act, coming into force in July that will make it illegal for hospitality businesses to hold back service charges from their employees.

The industry’s reaction to the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act seems to be a tidal wave of adding on sneaky charges as a way of making up for so often grabbing gratuities previously.

Whatever increases in business costs, such as electricity or National Insurance, it takes the biscuit how - to reap back the tips they will now have to share out - charges are now appearing on even smaller items such as pints of beer and takeaway coffees.

To dodge the new legislation, some are disguised as either a ‘management’ or ‘checkout’ fee with others adopting dynamic pricing policies, for example making drinks more expensive at weekends.

Our first taste of this new breed of ‘discretionary’ service charge came in at 12.5 per cent. We were already paying a fair whack for the food and were happy to do so because of the location, down by the riverside in York.

However, the outside table wasn’t overly clean and the glass of water ordered to accompany a very pricey coffee never arrived.

As an aside, with kitchen top coffee machines making marvellous drinks for pennies a pop, how these places have the brass neck to charge just shy of £4 for something so similar is beyond belief.

It took about ten minutes to catch somebody’s eye to bring the bill over, then a further wait for the card machine.

Mind you, the delay did give this mathematically challenged customer the time to check over the bill and notice the unwanted add-on.

Nobody likes feeling ripped-off and it happened again in a pub. 10 per cent added on for a chicken dish that cost around £18 and wouldn’t have been more than £2 tops to make. We are mugs for paying such stupid prices.

As an aside, we had home-made chicken pie the other day, using a free-range bird, some mushrooms and ready-made frozen pastry.

No more than £9 absolute tops on ingredients for six substantial portions, including accompanying vegetables.

A lunchtime burger at a market town hotel was the third and final example of our joke of a hospitality industry. We wandered aimlessly around and not one member of staff offered to take us to a table.

So we sat down, walked over to the empty bar and helped ourselves to menus and after what seemed an age went off to find someone in staff uniform, pointing out where we had seated ourselves.

One of the burgers came out uncooked in the middle. They brought another, but it left an awkward gap and didn’t do much for the appetite. Neither did the ten per cent added onto the bill.

Never mind service charges, the staff deserved a right roasting.