A Virginia man says a Taco Bell drive-thru rounded his $8.04 lunch order up to $9 without asking him first. Steven, who posts on TikTok as @even_steven1993, said he only caught the 96-cent difference because he insisted on getting his receipt back, BroBible reports.
Many viewers tied the extra charge to Taco Bell’s Round Up option, which lets customers donate spare change to the chain’s charity. Steven said no one asked him whether he wanted to give.
What Happened at the Window
“I just went to Taco Bell, and I went through the drive-thru. I ordered lunch. My total was $8.04,” Steven said in the video.
When he reached the Taco Bell drive-thru window, he says the employee told him $9. He handed over his card and assumed he had misheard. “I thought she said like, ‘$8 and some change,'” he says.
He claims the worker then crumpled up the receipt to throw it away. Steven asked for it to be reprinted, and the new copy showed the total had been rounded up by 96 cents.
“I get it. It’s only 96 cents. It’s not the end of the world,” he said.
The Explanation He Says He Got
Steven asked if the restaurant had rounded up his total. According to his account, the employee said yes, because the store was running low on change, and that “the system automatically rounds up” whenever that happens.
That explanation did not fit his order. Steven paid with a debit card, not cash. When he pointed that out, he says the reply was, “It does it anyway.”
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He closed the video with a message for other customers: “Watch yourself when you go through these drive-thrus and anywhere and everywhere, honestly.”
Steven later posted an update in the comments. He says he went back to the restaurant and got his money back, and that the store gave him a full dollar.
How Taco Bell’s Round Up Is Supposed to Work
The Taco Bell Foundation’s Round Up program lets customers round their order total up to the nearest dollar as a donation at participating restaurants, including at the drive-thru, kiosks, and front counters, as well as online and in the app. The money funds Community Grants and Live Más Scholarships for young people.
It is an opt-in program. Customers choose to round up, and the extra change goes to the foundation, not to the store’s cash drawer. Since 2019, Round Up has raised more than $150 million for students.
Taco Bell – Candeadly, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Many commenters on Steven’s video saw the charge as an overreach. “Rounding up $0.96 instead of down $0.04 is new math thievery,” one wrote. Others pointed out that the Round Up button exists for the charity. “The round up button is to help the college funds, not to replenish their drawer,” another commenter said.
On a similar Reddit post, users who said they work at Taco Bell wrote that they are required to ask before rounding up. “As a worker I get in trouble if I don’t ask! I never do it automatically,” one wrote, according to BroBible.
Round Up is meant to be the customer’s choice at every Taco Bell drive-thru, kiosk, and counter, and Steven’s dollar came back only after he returned to the restaurant.
Do you check your receipt at the drive-thru, and has a restaurant ever added a donation without asking you?
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