US News

SNEAKY FOUL TIPS

Here’s a tip – make sure restaurants aren’t automatically charging you one.

New York City eateries have begun tacking on automatic gratuities to meal checks, making up for the economic downturn by socking the wallets of unsuspecting customers.

The Post last week found a dozen restaurants foisting tips on diners – sometimes as high as 20 percent and regardless of party size and without noting the policy on the menu, all in violation of consumer laws.

“I felt cheated and taken advantage of,” said Dazi Chen, who discovered a 20 percent tip stealthily added to his check at Midtown’s Bombay Eats, where he dined with a friend.

“They’re trying to get double gratuity,” fumed Chen, 31.

When he complained to a waitress, he was told the tip is “programmed” into the cash register and could not be refunded.

Rebecca Christian, a resourcing manager from Manchester, England, who visited the swanky River Café in Brooklyn over the holidays with her boyfriend, said she was hit with an unannounced 15 percent gratuity on a $400 check.

In fact, the menu said, “Gratuity and sales tax not included.”

Despite being “absolutely shocked,” she said, she paid the bill because she thought it was an American custom.

The eatery denies adding on secret gratuities.

“It’s very, very rarely that we would do that, and if we do, we always inform the guest that it has been added to the calculation, both on the check and verbally,” the maitre d’ told The Post.

Mojito, a Cuban restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, altered its tip policy in September, but failed to note it on the menu. First, it charged everyone 20 percent, but when complaints piled up, it began billing only parties of five or more.

But even among restaurants that do alert diners to automatic gratuities, The Post found that many still break the rules by charging more than 15 percent or charging tables of fewer than eight people.

Mikata Japanese Cuisine downtown in June began charging all parties a 15 percent gratuity and an 18 percent tip for parties of five or more, the manager said.

But diner Eliza Cheung suspects staffers were angling for a double tip because the automatic gratuity was only “lightly penned” on the check.

The city Department of Consumer Affairs has issued 30 violations to restaurants for gratuity policies since 2005, with violators hit with fines between $50 and $500 per violation.

Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello

scahalan@nypost.com