After our meal at a restaurant recently, the server brought the bill with a QR code on it, and said, “Are you comfortable paying with your phone?” I said, “Yes, that’s no problem.” He smiled and left. I scanned the QR code, entered my credit card information, and my wife and I stood up to leave. I looked for our server. I was going to wave and silently mouth the words “Thank you,” but he was nowhere in sight.
As we passed the hostess desk, I stopped and spoke to the young lady. I said, “I have a question for you.”
She said, “Yes?”
“I promise you, I paid my bill, but I have to wonder – how do you actually KNOW that I paid my bill?”
She looked around. Then she faced me, smiled, shook her head, and said conspiratorially, “I have absolutely no clue whether you paid or not.”
I appreciate the convenience of this payment system, because I can pay immediately. It means I don’t have to wait interminably for a busy server to take care of people at three other tables, take someone’s order ticket to the kitchen, process my card, and finally get around to bringing the card back to me so I can go. That’s nice. But does this system have adequate verification processes? Do the servers get some sort of notification when their table has paid?