Cashier Overcharged Me By Three Cents

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is a ridiculous story.

I went to a convenience store. This is a large and busy convenience store with about 16 gas pumps. I bought gas with my card and took the receipt, then went into the store. The store had sodas on sale 2 for 2 dollars and I wanted to buy a treat for my child(ren) who were just getting out of school that day.

I stood in line with the two sodas. There were two customers in front of me and while I was in line, two customers got in line behind me.

The cashier rang up my two sodas and said “Two twenty.”

I handed him a 20 dollar bill and said “From twenty.” I learned to do this as a cashier myself back in the day to prevent error and trickery from quick change artists. Plus, I don’t like the cashier at this store.

While he was getting my change, I thought “The tax rate is 8.25%. The tax should be 16.5%. Rounding up, it should be 17 cents. The total should be $2.17. My change should be $17.83. Why is he charging me $2.20?”

I said to the cashier “The tax rate is 8.25% here isn’t it?”

He just looked at me.

I said “The tax should be 17 cents.”

He said “Huh.”

He continued to get my change. He handed me the change and said “$18.05.”
I counted the money. It was $18.05.

I said “At $2.20, the change should be $17.80.”

He said “That’s because you gave me a quarter.”

I said “I didn’t give you a quarter. I gave you a twenty.”
(That’s why I always say the name of the money I’m handing over. I had said “From twenty.”)

He said “I gave you $18.05.”

I counted it again (Because I was confused, and also because I was stalling a bit to try to figure out what he was doing.). In my hand was $18.05.

I said “Can I have the receipt?” But then he started up about the quarter again.
He said “It’s because you gave me a quarter.”

I said “I didn’t give you a quarter. It should be $17.80.”

He said “I gave you more. I gave you $18.05.”

I counted it again, still stalling, to try to figure out what he was up to. I checked the bills to see if they were fake. It was $18.05. They were not fake. I wondered why he was charging me $1.95 for a $2.00 item.

So, he first overcharged me by 3 cents, and then over paid me by 23 or 25 cents depending on if you are considering the amount he charged me or the amount he should have charged me

Since I was holding up the line and he refused to give me a receipt, I said “Nevermind” and left because I didn’t want to be late picking up the kids.

I complained about this at work and got a good mocking about it. I was told things like:

“He just made a mistake. Let it go.”

“He was probably out of pennies.”

“Maybe he has dyslexia,” and

“It’s just three cents. Who cares?”
So what do you think?

What would you do, if anything?

2

I think you’re always entitled to a receipt.

I’d have held my ground asking for the receipt.

With receipt in hand, you can validate your assumptions about the tax and the price of the items - was the cashier or the cash register overcharging you?

3

Considering most people can’t make change in their head, I might suspect the computer had something to do with it. Or else, he entered the wrong number into the machine.
The concept of counting up to subtract or make change is barely if ever taught in school anymore, and it isn’t on the state tests, so if it is taught, it isn’t reviewed.
The fact that he wouldn’t give you a receipt is what has the alarm bells clanging. How many others has he refused to give a receipt to? That is what needs to be reported to management, not 3 cents.

4

OK, just remember you said it, not me.

“It’s just three cents. Who cares?” about sums it up. With that said, I too get a bit annoyed when clerks try to stiff me for a couple of pennies. In this case, however, the clerk may genuinely have been a bit confused (ETA: although the refusal to provide a receipt does raise some questions).

Wait a few days, then make a similar purchase again. If the clerk again seems to short your change in his favor, shop elsewhere.

5

This certainly fits the forum…mundane and pointless!

6

If only you had jumped up and down non-stop, flapping your arms and hooting: “Three Cents ! Three Cents !”, I can guarantee help would arrived immediately.

7

Shoot him. I never resort to drawing and quartering for anything less than a dime.

8

I was taught to count backwards to make change in grade school. My daughter was as well. We both went to school in the same county, but she was taught 30 years later, I was in a private school, she was in a public school and her school and my school are in very different socioeconomic parts of the county. Also, she’s common core, I wasn’t.
However, in both cases, a fairly short amount of time was spent on it and frankly, I don’t think it really clicks for most people until you actually have to do it.

Personally, I forced myself to learn. I worked a register for many years and that’s how I learned. The customer would hand me the money and I would try to figure out the change before I popped the drawer. Took some time but now it’s easy.

As someone that trains cashiers and works a register, I’m going to guess he either just made a mistake with your change and you’re waaay over thinking it or he entered something into the register wrong and just continued to do what it told him (garbage in, garbage out, as they say).

Regarding the receipt, it didn’t sound like he refused to give it to you, just that you asked and then he went back to the quarter thing. If you asked again and he refused, that would be different.

One last thing, is he at all new (or really young, like it might be his first job). IME training high school kids, if they make any kind of mistake, for example, popping open the register early and being put in the position of having to calculate your change by hand, they’ll get tunnel vision and all bets are off. They won’t hear you talking, they won’t see anything but the register and their hands, they might be good at math, but it all goes out the window for a few seconds.

And because I’m on a roll, for the love of god, please don’t “help” train cashiers. Drives me up the effin wall. I’ve had to ask customers to stop, it’s their first day, I’ve trained hundreds of them, they really don’t need another person telling them how to count money.

9

Speaking as a cashier who makes occasional mistakes, if there’s a question I stop, examine the receipt, if necessary recalculate everything, and make any necessary corrections. On one occasion, over a dispute on whether I had been handed a 10 or a 20, I called a manager and the drawer was recounted.

Is it sometimes a hassle? Yes. I explain to waiting customers that I want to make sure the transaction and change are correct, please wait a minute so we can confirm everything. Reasonable people may not be happy but they understand. I try not to make mistakes but I’m human. Sometimes I key in the wrong amount. It happens.

(Unrelated to the OP, but I have sloppy coworkers who will put bills and change in the wrong slots, so you think you’re giving back two fives and it’s actually a five and a one. This is a problem, but a different one than the OP. I mention it as another possible source of cashier error.)

Fortunately, my employer is also reasonable about this, just as they’re reasonable if after 8 hours and tens of thousands of dollars in transactions the drawer is off a few cents or even a dollar. Again, we try to be 100% accurate but the reality is we’re human.

Hell, even the machine screws up sometimes - I’ve twice had register computers crash on me, necessitating moving the line to another register and dealing with a transaction stuck in the middle.

As a customer I probably wouldn’t argue over a 3 cent difference - although if it was a common thing I might avoid that place going forward. And if someone gave me too much change back I’d be honest and hand the excess back. But maybe I’m an exception.

10

Nothing. On the list of important things to worry about the loss of a few cents due to error is significantly below tying up a register line at a store.

11

As a one-off, I agree. If it happened a second time, I’d want to see a receipt. Want to make sure they aren’t programmed to 10% tax. And just to see how my items ended up totaling that way (if they did).

Side note: I don’t know how registers are programmed/tax is actually submitted/collected. Could programming a false sales tax rate be a way to skim (for an owner, not a cashier)? Or does it not work that way at all?

12

edited to just the back and forth between OP and cashier:

I want to point out that when something like this begins, my cashiers are taught to stop what they’re doing and call for a manger, period. They are absolutely not to try to sort out this bullshit on their own. Sure, if it’s something obvious like they gave you $8.05 and they know they should have given you $18.05 or your change was $14.85 but you flipped them a quarter, whatever, they can quickly clear that up.
But, when a customer starts bringing up things about the tax rate (we do get a some of that, don’t do that please, the cashier has nothing to do with it) or they start going back and forth about nickels and dimes and I gave you a ten, here take a 5 and 2 singles and give me the…whatever…just stop, call me.

Sometimes I have a customer trying to short change the cashier. Sometimes it’s an honest mistake on the cashier or the customer’s part but in more cases than not, someone ends up with less money than they’re supposed to and in most of these cases it’s preventable by having a third party (me) step in and walk through the entire transaction again to sort it out.

In your case, taken at face value, the cashier should have called for help, the manager should have asked what was going on and they probably would have just handed you three pennies and sent you on your way. It’s hardly worth anyone spending any time on. Honestly, I usually just hand over the money when it’s less than a buck or so (maybe more if the customer is getting loud I want them out).

13

I have been a cashier before (way long ago) and in one location it was possible to put money in the till without ringing it up, and as a result the cashier could pocket the money later. The lack of receipt and the miscalculations (most registers will not only calculate the tax correctly but will also indicate the amount of change due) lead me to suspect this might be going on here.

Alternatively, it may be something the shop owner wants to have happen so that they can have some of their income under the table and not reported for taxes.

As to what you should do, probably nothing except maybe don’t spend money there any more. If an employee is willing to cheat his employer, or if the company is willing to cheat on their taxes, it almost certainly isn’t a good place to do business.

14

Give back the extra money he gave you.

15

If the rogue snaffles 3 cents a time 10 times a week, he’ll be able to pay for three dances with a taxi-dancer for effectually nothing.

16

How’s that strategy working out for you?
mmm

17

Doubt the gas station is going to stay open if they get only 10 customers per shift per week. Or that there would be a line. It’s probably innocent, but if it’s 1.75% on all their non-gas purchases, that could add up to significant amount.

18

The thing is the Master Criminal, or what Eric Ambler designated as the ‘Able Criminal’ in Send No More Roses [ aka The Siege At The Villa Lipp in American ], knows too much to go to the well too often.
That has been the downfall of millions of thieves: instead of relying on an occasional percentage to keep themselves in luxury, they draw attention by the audacity and scope of their criminality — in this case maybe stealing 12 cents a time — and worse, which leads to the Débâcle, they never know when to stop.

19

No, if the purchase was not rung up the rogue would be able to pocket the entire net amount of money put into the till, in this case $1.95. Still not a fortune, but if there is no oversight he could do this any number of times during the day.

OP does not say if s/he could see the charge ($2.20) on the register. If it was visible at $2.20 then we know the register’s calculator is not set up properly. But my guess is that it was not visible on the register, and that was because it was not rung up. In this case either the cashier or the business was not being honest.

If the cashier was honest but stupid, then he or the store is out the 25 cents.

eta: as **Tsigone **notes, if the business is routinely over-taxing every sale and skimming the difference, that would be another reason for not spending your money there.

20

I was shorted two dollars on a cash motor fuel purchase (pay/pump/get-change) and realized it walking out to the car. Went back in and the cashier printed up the receipt, which told her how much change to hand back. I said the receipt was wrong. The guy sitting behind the counter had to pull out a calculator to see that it was wrong. It looked so obvious to me. I wonder how often the register makes that kind of “error”, that most people these days would not notice or argue about.

On the other hand, there is one convenience store I visit that has one of those change trays for simplifying transactions: it is like a small candy jar that looks like it accumulates on the order of twenty dollars a day, because, according to the cashier, young people these days just do not want arsed to handle coins.