The cashier decided to settle the matter by having the restaurant pay half of the bill.
DINING at seafood restaurants can be a dangerous game (wallet-wise) as most seafood restaurants in Malaysia calculate the cost of the seafood by weight in grams.
A seafood restaurant in Sabah shared on its Facebook page on Sept 1 of three customers who allegedly “refused” to pay the full bill after ordering RM1,102.20 worth of food.
According to the receipt provided in the post, the customers ordered on Aug 27, two crab dishes (RM230), a lobster dish (RM480), fried squid (RM28), steamed fish (RM224), rice (RM9 – RM3/portion) and four drinks (RM31) with an added service charge of RM100.20.
The restaurant management claimed in their now-removed post that the customers refused to pay the full amount because it was “too expensive” for them, and only paid less than half of the bill.
“They refused to pay (the bill) in full, saying it was too expensive, and only paid RM400. We ask this family to pay back the balance of RM702.20 immediately.
“There is no excuse for them not being able to pay as we already know what was ordered on the menu. Whatever the reason, hopefully, they will pay us back quickly,“ the management said in their post.
However, things took an interesting turn after the accused patron shared their version of the story on Facebook, claiming that the restaurant’s post was false and painted them in a bad light.
He alleged that since it was only three of them dining, they chose to order the lobster dish at the price tag of RM48 per 100 grams as it was within the trio’s budget.
“It turned out that the waitress, who assured us that we would get a lighter weight of lobster, had placed an order for one kilogramme of the lobster without informing us.
“We initially discussed the issue of the pricey lobster with the waitress. The cashier then intervened and decided to settle the matter by having the restaurant pay half of the bill and the customer bore the other half,“ the customer said in his post.
In a brief video clip of the incident uploaded in the same post by the customer, the cashier can be heard saying: “To resolve the issue, you can just pay in half. Settle.”
In another Facebook entry posted on Sept 2, also removed at the time of writing, several officials from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Costs of Living (KPDN) visited the restaurant, but the management assured that matters had been resolved and “nothing suspicious was going on”.
The restaurant management also stated that they had filed a complaint with the police after the incident.
In addition, the management also alleged that the customer’s video was taken before both parties fully agreed to split the bill and urged the family to come forward and resolve the matter as soon as possible.