[QUOTE=kjckjc]
Wait, they don’t add up? Why not? Say the magic number was seven. So if I came in 4 times with my card and got it punched and on the 5th time I forgot my card and got a new one, I couldn’t use the new one for the 6th and 7th punch? This doesn’t make sense to me. I once paid for a $200 piece of electronics with the combination of like 6 gift cards ranging in value. They didn’t have an “all the money has to be on one card policy”. I just think that if you have a “buy 7 get 1 free” program, and I buy 7 I should get one free regardless of the number of cards. I, or someone else or a combination of people bought seven coffees. If I was a manager and saw seven cards with only one punch on each I would ask how many free coffees the person gave out. Seven would be a bad answer…one would be perfectly fine. Sorry for the hijack.
-KJC
PS. I have a feeling the reason for this policy falls somewhere along the “Yep, that’s how they getcha!” lines.
[/QUOTE]
I dunno. I would have stapled/taped/glued or whatever the two together so anyone would understand they were acting as one card. But every store I’ve worked at has been lenient about things like that.
Or the kind cashier could have taken both cards, shit-canned one, punched out the remaining card to total seven, stuck the punched-out card in the register drawer and handed over a fresh cuppa joe.
Oh sure, I work at a summer program for gifted and motivated students, so there are tons of shifty and/or rabid parents wanting something or other against policy. We’ve had deadbeat-paying parents send an empty sealed envelope saying “payment enclosed” to try and throw us off, we’ve had parents finagle to get their children placed a grade level above (bragging rights, pretty much, since the classes are already advanced) by lying about them skipping a grade (we’re not above calling someone’s school, you know, mister), we’ve had grades rubbed out and changed, claims that someone in the office promised something they have no authority to promise, lies about when documents were submitted or requested (we have date stamps and detailed database notes), accusations of racism because someone didn’t get their first choice class, claims that X school doesn’t start achievement testing till x grade (um, we have a stack of classmates’ apps here that say differently), deliberate withholding of tax return information to conceal financial resources, all of that. I once had a parent use my own name in the “so-and-so promised me this” ruse.
The director recently wrote a book, and a parent wanting something mentioned how much she had loved it. The book hadn’t been released from publishing yet at the time.
[QUOTE=Morelin]
I dunno. I would have stapled/taped/glued or whatever the two together so anyone would understand they were acting as one card. But every store I’ve worked at has been lenient about things like that.
[/QUOTE]
:smack:
I guess I could have…it didn’t even occur to me. I know I blew off the manager’s requirements not to check gift card balances at the register…apparently it cost the store 50 cents to check it through the register. We were supposed to tell the customer to visit the website and check it there. But if someone asked, I checked. I also know on more than one instance I forgot to ring up someone’s drink, so I just gave them the cup and didn’t fret the $1.29 or whatever it was.
So hopefully, in the larger scheme, my karma points balanced out.
[QUOTE=Foxy40]
Yes, it is a vicious cycle. People get away with these scams by yelling and insisting so they continue to yell and demand until they get their way. It just makes it harder on the next clerk or vendor who is trying to do his/her job. More managers should read this.
[/QUOTE]
Bookmarked. I’ve spent enough time in retail to know all of those customers. Some customers are just more trouble than they’re worth.
I agree about crazy customers (especially hungry ones) – but it’s also true that our products weren’t perfect, either. The food we sold didn’t always look as good as what’s pictured in the commercials, y’know?
I figured it probably evened out.
Parents who’d lie, cheat and steal for their kids “benefit” though, that’s REALLY low, in my book.
[QUOTE=Foxy40]
Tramadol isn’t a controlled substance but I don’t know if that would matter when filing a police report for stolen medication.
[/QUOTE]
Well what do you know? It isn’t everywhere. Last summer when it went CIV in Arkansas, I thought it was a federal change. (Linky Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy - Arkansas Department of Health). The only other state my (short) research indicates has given it controlled status is Alabama.
A company I used to work for (YAY!!!) provided services to a small company that was the king of whiny complaining. They took responsibility for nothing they did and every monkey-typing-Shakespeare keystroke entry that caused a system problem had to be 100% our fault. Worse, they were an ‘intimate lingerie company’, so they were snobby and condescending as all hell.
Almost 99 times out of 100, we caved to these boneheads and fixed their screw-ups free of charge. My only regret is that on my last call with them I didn’t say,
“Listen, Captain Underpants, is your next call going to be to Casio or Texas Instruments bitching about their products because your bookkeeper can’t get 2 + 2 to equal 5? The GIGO principal is in fill play here, pal. No, I’m not saying your incompetent. I’m just saying its a shame that ‘subcompetent’ isn’t a word.”
[QUOTE=Rick]
Many years ago, I bought a bottle of Jim Beam and a bag of ice from Traders Joes. When I got back to my apartment I lifted the shopping bag (paper) out of the car. The ice had melted somewhat, the water soaked the bag, and the bottle of JB hit the sidewalk with expected results. A fifth of Jim’s finest all over the sidewalk.
The next day I was complaining to my friends at work about my bad luck. One of them used to work in a grocery store that had a liquor dept. He asked me if the tax stamp on the neck was intact. I said yes, it was, the bottom broke out of the bottle. He told me to take the neck back and ask, that the store could get their money back from the distributor if the tax stamp was intact.
So that night, I went out to where I had parked the car the night before and recovered the intact neck and went back to TJ’s.
The result was a replacement bottle of JB at no charge.
YMMV.
[/QUOTE]
We can do this too, but it is a PIA, so we don’t. A larger store probably has a department that could handle this, but in our store the boss has to do it, and he hates doing it.
I guess if my boss liked a customer enough he would return their bottle for them. My job, however, is to tell them there is nothing we can do.
Some of the more creative scams customers attempted to pull at the university bookstore where I used to work:
A customer came to our branch and claimed he had been charged for two books when he only bought one at another branch. I looked at his receipt and knew this couldn’t have happened because his purchase was recorded as:
2xSome Textbook
That would only happen if a cashier typed it in. Accidentally scanning an item twice would have produced:
Some Textbook
Some Textbook
I called my manager, who said he didn’t think it happened as the customer said, but rather than pursue the matter when the rush was on, gave him the freakin’ refund for his “accidental charge.”
We had a policy that books bought during finals couldn’t be returned, because we didn’t want to rent out books. A customer brought in a book bought during the “dead period” for an Asian studies class shortly after the spring semester ended, claimed he’d bought it for a class he dropped in the summer session and wanted to return it. I was at the front of the store and heard the story, but it was a coworker who went off to get my manager.
“That’s for an Asian studies class?” I asked. I was the person who put together the database of all the books we had for any given semester.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Hm, I didn’t think that was being used this summer.”
His eyes widened and he was visibly started. Small children lied better.
“Uh, it’s for a community college class.”
“They don’t have an Asian studies department.”
“It’s for a special class.”
I was ready to pursue just where the hell this special class was being taught, as it was apparently so top-secret it wasn’t in the course schedule, but my manager arrived, heard the story, told the student he thought he was being scammed, and allowed the freakin’ return.
