SINGAPORE: A seafood restaurant owner received the surprise of her life when customers who had been mistakenly charged S$2 for Australian lobsters worth S$200 came back to settle their bill.
Dai Xingying, who owns Cheng Ji Seafood Restaurant 城记海鲜, took to Facebook on February 19 to thank the diners for their honesty, adding that it was the first time this had happened and that she was deeply moved by their gesture.
A father, mother, and two teenage daughters had gone to the East Coast Road branch of the eatery on the evening of February 18, the second day of Chinese New Year.
Ms Dai posted a photo of the receipt from their meal, which came out to S$182.78. The first item on the receipt, circled in red, indeed showed that the diners had only been charged S$2 for their order of two small Australian lobsters.
The restaurant owner told Shin Min Daily News that the circumstances around the repayment had been unusual. First, the family actually took the receipt, which not all diners do. Next, they looked at it to check for accuracy, which even fewer people do.
Finally, they took the time to return to the restaurant to pay S$198, the amount they had been undercharged.
The CCTV photo Ms Dai shared on Facebook showed that the family sent the two daughters to pay the restaurant the balance for what they had ordered. She told Shin Min Daily News that the parents waited in a carpark nearby.
Out of gratitude to the family, the restaurant owner handed the two teens red envelopes as a little gift for the new year.
In her post, she wrote that she had initially been puzzled about why the girls came back, as it is far more common for customers to claim they’ve been overcharged and therefore request some money back.
However, when they checked the receipts from the day before, she and the manager realised that the error had been on their part, something they had not been aware of until the teens told them about it and paid the balance S$198.
It was a refreshing change from customers who dine and dash, which appeared to happen on the first day of the Chinese New Year, or those who haggle over a few dollars, paper towels, or tea.
Ms Dai added that after giving the young girls ang bao, she went with them to where their parents were waiting at the car park to personally thank them as well. She also praised them in her post for the good example they set for their daughters.
Their “sincerity and kindness are ten thousand times more precious than the Australian lobsters,” she wrote. /TISG
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