The Riddle of the £30 Restaurant Bill

[You read the answer here first]

It seems that an age-old mathematical brain teaser (sometimes known as The Missing Dollar) is doing the rounds again on the internet. It goes like this.

Three friends go out for a meal. The bill comes to £30 so they give the waiter £10 each. The waiter then realises he has made a mistake and that the bill should only have been £25. Not knowing how to divide the extra £5 between three people he decides to give them back just £1 each and keeps the other £2 himself. So the three friends have paid £9 each making £27, and the waiter has kept £2, so what happened to the other £1?

I don't know what the difficulty is. The answer is obvious. PayPal kept it.

Jim Laker, Mr. Ellis and the Eagle Annual

 This piece was reposted as a New Month Old Post on 1st September, 2020