A routine facial waxing appointment in South Dakota took an unexpected turn for one TikTok creator after she says a 15% tip was added to her bill “without my consent.”
In a video posted by TikTok creator @emrykaiser, she recounts what happened when she went to pay for the service. She says her total came to $25.91, but the checkout process apparently moved ahead with a 15% gratuity before she had a chance to decide how much she wanted to leave.
The interaction appears to begin normally, with the worker telling her, “Your total is gonna be $25.91.” The creator then says the 15% tip came to $3.89. Rather than having the gratuity included in the card transaction, she asked if she could leave the amount in cash.
“It’s three eighty-nine. Can I just give you cash?” she asks.
The tip was apparently processed before she could choose
According to the creator, the worker then told her the payment had already been processed. When she questioned why, the worker said the amount selected was simply the most popular option.
“Sorry, I already run it through.”
When the creator asks, “Why?” the worker responds, “Um, don’t you usually give the customer a choice?”
The worker then explains, “Well, that’s just the most popular option.”
That exchange appears to be the main reason the creator was uncomfortable with the transaction. A business suggesting a standard gratuity is one thing, but processing it before the customer has selected an amount creates a different situation. In the video, the creator appears to question why the choice was made on her behalf rather than presented as an option at checkout.
The comments quickly focused on that part of the interaction. One viewer wrote, “That’s illegal btw”, while another commenter suggested, “Cancel the transaction and tell her to redo it.”
A third viewer took a similarly firm position, writing, “Nope refund me! They don’t get to choose gratuity.”
Those comments reflect how viewers interpreted the exchange, although they do not establish whether any law was actually broken. The video also does not show the payment screen or include the business’s side of what happened, so the details of the transaction remain based on the creator’s account.
At checkout, suggested tipping percentages are common, but customers still expect to have a say in the amount they leave. That can become particularly noticeable when a customer realizes afterward that they left a different gratuity than intended, as happened in another recent restaurant encounter.
In this case, @emrykaiser says that choice came too late, leaving her questioning why a 15% gratuity had already been processed before she could decide for herself.
Published: Aug 11, 2026 07:55 am