Consumers Can Choose Not To Pay Service Charges For A Bad Service

As per the new norm, while dinning out, in case you don’t like the service, you can happily avoid paying the service fee, which is many times automatically added up in your amount by several restaurants.

The government has mentioned that all the service charge amount ranging from 5 to 20 percent and is normally added to the bill cannot be inevitably charged by the restaurants. On this, the department of consumer affairs mentioned that the inevitable charges applied by restaurants in tne form of service fee disturbs the fair trade practices.

On this, state government will make sure that the information reaches to all hotels and restaurants and they remain aware of the new policy. For an unhappy customer, service charges may be waived off.


After receiving number of complaints on the matter that hotels and restaurants are constantly following the practice of levying “service charge” between the range of 5-20% for earning some tip irrespective of the quality of service they provide to the customers. As per The Consumer Protection Act, 1986, if the service provider conducts any unfair practices for promotion of the sale, then that will be termed under unfair trade practices. Against this, the consumer can lodge the complaint in related consumer forum. For this, Central Government, Consumer Affairs asked for explanations from the Hotel Association of India. In reply to this, the service charges are a choice of consumer to pay or not in case they don’t like the service.

According the provisions of Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the department of consumer affairs have urged the State government to handle the hotels, companies and restaurants in the state in case they are conducting this unhealthy practice. Also, they advised the hotels and restaurants to make the people aware of this new rule by displaying it at their place, saying that the service charges are discretionary and a dissatisfied consumer can choose not pay them.

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