It is her property. It is not Target’s property. Originally ownership belongs to the person giving the card. He gives to the cashier in the form of a tip or a present. The cashier then takes on ownership. The fact that it happens on Target premises affects her employement status, not her ownership status. There is no law that bans tipping to a non-government employee.
Was the gift card used to process the transaction? It was not stated in the OP. She received a $100 gift card, not some indeterminate value below $100. Regardless, Target has a duty to investigate if the transaction happened properly. It did, and they took it. By what right does Target have that ability? Her choices, as stated multiple times, is either to accept it and be fired or decline it/turn it over to Target.
You could have done a number of things, you could have said “ma’am, I’m sorry, I can’t accept a tip and doing so might get me fired” (if that were the case at the grocery store) in which case she would have almost certainly taken it back. Or you could have brought it into your manager and said “the lady that was here insisted on giving me the tip, what should I do” (assuming that it was against policy to accept tips and gifts).
In my experience, grocery stores often permit tips. Bag boy is often considered a tipped position and since grocery store positions are fluid and you might be bagging one day and cashiering the next…We have one grocery store in town where if I try and tip employees for bringing my bags to the car I do get the “sorry ma’am, I can’t accept tips” and one where they are gratefully accepted.
And that is not relevant because that is found property. Find a case where - in violation of an written ethics policy - an employee was allowed to keep a gift given to him or her by a customer or vendor with whom they have no outside relationship. Then you have a cite.
The whole not accepting gifts from customers and vendors over a token dollar amount is very well established in business ethics - so well established that many professional organizations also have policies about it just in case your employer doesn’t. It would SHOCK me if there were any state where an employer was not allowed to forbid that as a term of employment, since ethically, accepting gifts in business is a minefield. But if you can find the case law…
Well sure, that is the employee will tell everybody. :dubious:
But what then stops the employee from accepting a card in payment of an item, pretending to process the sale, waiving the spacy customer through with his merchandise, and pocketing the gift card (telling management it was “tip”)?
These policy’s exist because people cheat and steal. This is a sad fact of life. The company must confiscate all tips to discourage the few incorrigible employees.
It seems like your friend was honest, and the card was merely confiscated. If employee theft were suspected but not directly provable, then accepting the “tip” alone would be grounds enough to fire her.
I typed two paragraphs how tipping a cashier was different than a waiter detailing the differences and how it affected more people, or could affect more. I deleted it all after realizing that I would and would love to be able to for the fast checkers at my Walmart. I did not step foot in a Walmart until about 1 1/2 years ago, I went half a year living within a couple blocks of one. They turned into a super one with grocery and it sucks, bad, really bad, horribly bad. I would say eighty percent of the workers there are useless, it could be the worst store in the U.S., I see nothing they do right. So nevermind…the checkers are hell but there are a few that are awesome, fast, do not get flustered when they run out of cash, basically be a cashier. I wish I could tip them. I tip in a restaurant for two reasons, good service and if the food is good I want to go back and maybe, just maybe they will remember me and maybe just maybe they will do something special. I do not get out to eat in any food place with a waiter very often, but I tip well. It worked in my 20’s with bars, I did get special treatment in my 4-5 bars I wen’t to, and it does just as much with food.
So that is why…even if you are in a type of line at a bar or resteraunt the line at a retail outlet is an equalizer. No cuts, no cheating, and even though I would like to tip them for doing their job better than their coworkers (just a bit, change, a dollar) someone would take advantage of it expecting another tip.
The gift card needs to be scanned in order to finish out the sale. As part of scanning the card, the balance is subtracted from the card - if there is a remaining balance, it appears on the receipt and the card is handed back to the customer. If there is no remaining balance the cashier is supposed to ask if the customer wants the card back (I never got why) and throw it away.
In order to accept a card for payment and not scan it, the cashier would need to ring up the sale as a cash sale - on a $100 gift card, that’s going to create a very short register. The register door would open and an astute customer would wonder why (on a credit or gift card sale, the register door never opens). The receipt would show the cash transaction. They’ve even made it harder for cashiers to run the scam - the customer runs their card - not the cashier. She’d get fired that afternoon.
Ethics policies exist to discourage a few employees, but in this case it isn’t stealing the card that they are afraid of. They are afraid of a cashier “not completely ringing up” a customer who gives them a gift card. Or a cashier who favors a customer - letting them come through the express lane with a full cart when the store is busy - because they’ve given them a gift card. And the real worry isn’t the cashiers, its kickbacks to the corporate employee who hires the cleaning staff and the IT manager who picks the next ERP upgrade project or the merchandiser who buys makeup and gets a personal payment for giving Revlon premium placement on the planogram. That last bit is why I’m fairly certain there is no case law that an employee can keep these gifts - kickbacks and bribes are NOT GOOD and easy enough to wrap up as gifts - you need to be able to fire all three of the previous examples if they take those gifts.
Side note to the thread for this - if you want to thank an employee, and a tip is not appropriate, you can take an extra few minutes to tell their management.
I did this recently at a grocery store. I’m switching which branch of the store I use, for reasons unrelated to the actual store. I really like the produce department in the old store, and wanted to make sure they knew it. I went to the service desk, and asked to speak to a manager. I complimented her on the department, and asked her to pass the compliment on to the staff who work there. She lit up, and asked me if I’d be willing to fill out a comment card for corporate.
It’s not money in their pocket, but hopefully it’s at least a warm fuzzy feeling for them.
I did tell her we are not allowed to accept tips from customers, she still shoved it in my pocket and I did tell the office and gave it to the Flower Fund.
It often is money in their pockets. Some customer service organizations will give a $5 gift card to an employee who gets a written customer comment. Not all, and it isn’t always a one for one sort of thing, but little bonuses at a managers discretion like that are often part of corporate policy.
Clerks can attempt that even without a GC. Any item not “scanned” may beep at the door and then what? They go back to the cashier to see why it was not rung up, etc., and detail the customers whole purchase against the register tape!
Do you have a cite for this? Which law states that as an employee, you are entitled to keep anything you find while doing your duties, and on your employer’s premises?
I do, but the law library is closed until Jan. I will provide it though when they re-open.
I might add, let’s say I go behind the jewelry counter to get some tape and see a ring on the floor, now although that is classified as LOST, the RIGHTFUL OWNER is clear, the company.
I am speaking on areas where the PUBLIC is invited where any # of customer’s could have lost it.
No. Retail merchandise is rung up using a barcode, but store security systems are activated by magnetic tags placed on certain items. The tag is deactivated by running it over a magnetic pad (they’re usually grey and covered in plastic) or removed at the point of sale, but you can deactivate the tag without ringing up the item or vice versa.
IIRC, Target’s pads are placed so the associate pretty much has to run the item over them while bagging.
What difference does that make? Don’t you think that a business has a right to have a policy that employees need to turn in found items? Or you think each employee should on his own decide who probably lost something, and if it’s “only a customer” who lost it, then the item is up for grabs?