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GroupMe: Split the Bill

blog.groupme.com

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#2
I love that they're trying this, and it seems to be executed well.

My friends and I already use Venmo for bill splitting though, and it works pretty well.

Generally I subscribe to the school of thought that each app should do one thing and do it well, and this is sort of unfortunately getting away from that.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#3
Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week.

Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worked in an office for a while, but cash used to work well (and didn't leave a digital trail of who you're giving money to).

Maybe there's some bigger play going on in this market, but it's always felt to me like a solution looking for a problem.

EDIT - on the few occasions where I've 'split a bill' with someone out at a bar/club/restaurant, I always feel I get stiffed, because I don't drink alcohol - so getting a $100 bill split 5 ways... well... I just had a $3 pepsi - why the hell do we "split" this equally?

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#5
This seems unreasonably expensive. Each contributor gets charged 4% plus $0.99. This makes it very expensive to split a restaurant lunch bill.

8 people chipping in on a $100 check: Even split would be $12.50 per person. With this service it would be $14.00 per person. That's a 12% tax on lunch for everyone but the initiator.

This might be useful for bigger purchases, but even then, charging 4% to give money to my friend seems a little ridiculous.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#6
post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

I don't think anyone has an issue with actually having the money to contribute to the bill. And if everyone is paying by card it's pretty simple, but once you get cash involved giving everyone the right change can be a huge pain. I've had a lot of success using Venmo for this purpose.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#7
post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

I feel that. We can be old geezers together. We've had a solution to this "problem" for centuries: cash.

If your group is too lazy to ask the server to split the tab 4 ways, what in the world makes you think they're all going to pull out their apps and pay this way? Then there's inevitably someone who doesn't have a smartphone, or doesn't have that app, or doesn't want to sign up for a new payment account, or doesn't like using credit cards online, or whatever.

More than a couple times I've been sitting there with people trying to add up their totals, some taking out cash, some taking out cards, arguing over who pays what, and just paid the whole thing and asked them to buy me coffee or a meal or whatever when they can.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#8
post #6
post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

I don't think anyone has an issue with actually having the money to contribute to the bill. And if everyone is paying by card it's pretty simple, but once you get cash involved giving everyone the right change can be a huge pain. I've had a lot of success using Venmo for this purpose.

You guys are probably right about the value of this app in a restaurant especially vs. cash or asking servers to split the bill---

however, I think there's a less obvious value for this tool in offices, for example, where people split gifts or cakes or lottery ante-ups together... not everyone might be physically in the office on a given particular day, etc...

uh, edit: haven't looked into Venmo, doing so now

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#9
post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

I've used it very successfully for vacation and for a whiskey fund for the office. Usually more expensive charges or ones that include a lot of people.

I have not used it to split dinner or a bar tab. That's cash.

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