Can you leave your wife behind?

Nikon Man

Nikon Man

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Recently wife and myself had dinner in a local chain pub, was a nice meal so went to pay and the young chap behind the bar informed us the credit wifi card machine had gone t*ts up and asked for cash.

Informed him we had no cash on us, well not 45 quid anyway. we stood looking at each other for a few seconds and he asked what was I going to do about it?
Beats me say's I just want to pay and go home.

He told me I should go to a cash point and get cash to which I agreed, then changed his mind and asked my wife to stay in case I didn't return.:eek:

I told him that he was way out of order talking to us in that manner. He just kept on saying "what we gunna do bout it" "nothing" I said and just stood there looking directly at him as he kept fiddling with the said card machine.

The manager arrived and said it was ok to pop back another day and pay hopefully by then the card machine will be fixed.

Went by the following day, the manager apologized for the unfriendly staff encounter and refused my payment and hope we would come back again.:thumbs:

Wifi was never any good.:lol:
 
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Wifi or Wifey ;-)
 
Some would have left the wife there and not gone back :)
 
Al1944 said:
Some would have left the wife there and not gone back :)
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Who would do my laundry and feed me?:lol:

(I do my own laundry and the wife can't cook for toffee) just for the record.;)
 
Disgusting behaviour by the member of staff. They should have a backup system under the counter. One of the mechanical machines that takes an imprint of your card.

Hell I run an ecommerce site and even I have one of these machines. Not sure how I'd use it though.

Well done to the manager though, bet the member of staff got a bit of a *******ing too.
 
So basically, you were asked to make a deposit of your wife :lol:
 
Poor staff attitude but all credit to the manager surely?
 
but the manager can authorise such a thing, the staff member in comparison simply wouldnt be allowed to authorise you leaving and returning later with payment. by the sounds of it he could have handled it better however..

leaving a "deposit" is nothing new, but make it something your likely to come back for!
 
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There is no law that says you cannot leave without paying so long as there is no intention to avoid payment, and certainly no law that says you need to leave a "deposit"!

I had a similar situation a while ago with petrol, but I guess there is less risk there as they have your car reg number to track you if don't come back.
 
£45 for the wife seems quite a good deal to me, mine cost me 100's of thousands to get rid of lol
 
chain pub.....?

That means there is a HOffice somewhere... and a MD / CEO...

If it were me, they would have an email awaiting their immediate attention...
 
Sure, I'll leave my wife here, but I'll need a deposit from you to make sure you don't run off with her... :)
 
Lynton said:
chain pub.....?

That means there is a HOffice somewhere... and a MD / CEO...

If it were me, they would have an email awaiting their immediate attention...
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I would expect no less!
 
joescrivens said:
The problem is asking for him to leave his wife as a hostage whilst he went and got a payment method.
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Jeez, that's a bit much isn't it? These days it's perfectly plausible for people to take any chance they can get to avoid paying. If the bartender had let the two go, and they never came back, he'd have hell to pay. I'm sure the two aren't joined at the hip, it seems perfectly reasonable that one stays behind. The manager has hung his staff out to dry on this one to save face in front of what appears to have been a needlessly sensitive customer. That's just my impression, I appreciate the manner in which he may have asked you might not have been what you'd want but it seems the issue is leaving a 'deposit' rather than the way they spoke.
 
but the problem was not of the OP's making. It was there machines that had stopped working. In such circumstances I would not have left any form of deposit, just my name and address.
 
boliston said:
There is no law that says you cannot leave without paying so long as there is no intention to avoid payment, and certainly no law that says you need to leave a "deposit"!
I had a similar situation a while ago with petrol, but I guess there is less risk there as they have your car reg number to track you if don't come back.
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The above is absolutely correct.
Thier card payment equipment was faulty. Name and telephone number; tell them to call when it's up and running so that you can happily return to pay, and then be on your way with a cheery wave :)
 
As much as i`m loathe to agree with Joe, I can understand where he is coming from, maybe "hostage" is too strong a word. But I sure as hell would not have left my wife there whilst I went to the cash machine, nor would she have stayed there if I did.Nor do I understand why anyone would suggest such a thing.
 
To be honest, if I'd have been the wife, I'm afraid the barman / waiter / half-wit would have found himself on the business end of a hissy fit anyway.
 
With all the scammers and people who do runners out of restaurants nowadays I can understand why he did what he did. We are not talking about a cheap big mac meal here, but a £45 bill. If they risked letting everyone out in the hope they would return with the cash, then they could lose a hell of a lot of money in a world where businesses are struggling to keep afloat (Ask dixons, game and woolworths, they are too big to go bankrupt, right?) And asking if you would leave your wife there while you went to a cahshpoint, again, where is the problem? I assume its a reputable restaurant and not owned by tony soprano. Its not like you are stuck in the middle of an african jungle and you tell your wife to wait by the jeep while you go see if you can walk off and find someone with a spare tyre. I'm sure she's a big girl and old enough to be trusted in a restaurant you deemed good enough to eat in

As for giving your telephone number and address, all well and good providing you have given the correct details. But all said and done, this was resolved pretty well I think.
 
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rssmrry said:
Jeez, that's a bit much isn't it? These days it's perfectly plausible for people to take any chance they can get to avoid paying. If the bartender had let the two go, and they never came back, he'd have hell to pay. I'm sure the two aren't joined at the hip, it seems perfectly reasonable that one stays behind. The manager has hung his staff out to dry on this one to save face in front of what appears to have been a needlessly sensitive customer. That's just my impression, I appreciate the manner in which he may have asked you might not have been what you'd want but it seems the issue is leaving a 'deposit' rather than the way they spoke.
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Not really.

There could have been any number of reasonable "deposit" items. Bank card, ID ETC

a person is not a deposit. He asked, they said no they don't feel comfortable, I know my wife wouldn't feel comfortable on her own at night in a bar restaurant, that should be respected.

The bartender could have just asked for some ID, and took their details down, then if they didn't come back to pay he could have pursued it with the police.
 
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Based on the OP's post, I see it as [a] Member of staff lacked manners, the Manager showed some customer handling skills [c] there needs to be a fall-back ability to take credit card payments if the wifi goes down and [d] Some staff training is necessary to alert the manager once the authority level in a situation has been reached.

Or did I miss something?

Anthony.
 
neil_g said:
And the Oxford dictionary :thumbs:
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There's more than one dictionary in the world. Here's another definition

"a person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement"

Don't see any mention of forced restraint there.

But really, getting so hung up on the definition is a bit pedantic don't you think, I'm pretty sure you understand where I am coming from.
 
Come to think of it, I filled up the car with petrol no that long ago with £60 worth of fuel only to discover no purse in the handbag. No problem whatsoever with the filling station. Simply filled out a "Promise to Pay" form, on which the only personal information was name, telephone number and (most importantly) car reg., then simply returned a few hours later to pay (thay give you 72 hours!).

This was the same filling station at which I filled same car previously, went into the shop and bought a few things then drove off without actually paying for the fuel (just the shop items). I drove back there like a bat out of hell about 8 hours later and confessed my heinous crime and they checked the CCTV feed, then announced that as they could find no record of my vehicle at the pump, they could not take payment for it. Bizarre!!
 
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joescrivens said:
There's more than one dictionary in the world. Here's another definition

"a person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement"

Don't see any mention of forced restraint there.

But really, getting so hung up on the definition is a bit pedantic don't you think, I'm pretty sure you understand where I am coming from.
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Yes, I understand that you're overreacting ;)
 
I really don't see what the issue is here, you were asked to go to a cash point while your wife stayed at the pub, really what on earth is the big deal, I've had it where I've been at a restaurant and the same thing happen to me, this is the biggest non issue ever, I guess maybe his attitude or manner may have been off but there are only so many ways you can ask someone to do that, hell I once had to leave my car and walk down the road to a cash machine because the petrol stations card machine was non operational, have you ever been in that pub before, are you a regular someone that they would know is going to come back?
 
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