Do you count your change when you pay cash?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

At the supermarket. At a gas station. When you take a taxi or a limo. For many years, I worked part time in various jobs that involved handling cash.

At a gas station. As a cashier in a supermarket. Driving an airport limo. I was genuinely surprised to find that at all these various jobs, the one thing that was common and even rampant was that employees delighted in cheating customers - usually by shortchanging them or by inflating their bills. Often, several of them even helped each other with new and better ideas on how to cheat the customers and how to avoid getting caught.

Once cameras were installed that focused on a cash drawer in supermarkets, it became extremely difficult for employees to steal money from the till. Instead, they switched to stealing from the customers. It may surprise you, but many big companies (and small ones too) involved in handling cash only really care about employees stealing from them. They don’t care much about employees stealing from the customers.

So, when you buy a bunch of groceries, you really should try to form some idea of what you expect the total to be and if it’s more (it’s never less), you would be well advised to have it double checked.

Also, when you pay cash, if an employee gives you change, you would be well advised to count the change and not just stick it in your pocket.

At many of the part time jobs I worked, some employees would take home double or triple their salaries by cheating the customers (the ones who got away with it never cheated the company they worked for). They could get so much because all the money they stole was tax free. So, if they earned $10 per hour and they stole $6 or $7 per hour, their take home pay would effectively be double.

One clue that an employee is stealing is if they are extremely polite and friendly to you and ask you harmless sounding things (like, “How are you doing today?” or “Was everything OK today?”) when they hand you your change. They don’t really give a shit how you are. Those questions are designed to put you off balance so that you won’t count your change.

If they try to get you talking about most anything, that is another clue. It keeps you off balance and makes it more unlikely they will catch you cheating from them.

When I worked in gas stations, I used to target certain kinds of customers (this was before it was called “profiling”). If a customer fit the profile, I would often steal from them. I am reluctant to tell you exactly who was on that profile list because I fear it would make many people very angry. For example, the elderly were highest on the list. It’s really not very nice to think that when your elderly parents or relatives go out and buy something and pay cash, they are extremely likely to be cheated. But they are the easiest category to cheat because it’s so easy to get them talking. I suppose it’s because they are often lonely.

When a customer made a cash transaction, if the amount was say $7.85, a common technique was to make an intentional error and charge them $8.75. Then, all I had to do was to charge someone else one dollar less than they paid and pocket the difference. The company never knew what happened. They were very happy with me because they were never short any money and for that reason, they assumed I was an honest employee.

I did this hundreds and hundreds of times and only once did someone check the amount on the pump against the amount they paid and discovered they had been “overcharged” by a dollar. I then went into my, “Oh! I’m so very sorry” routine. But who would really complain about one dollar? I’m guessing that even when some people noticed, they just didn’t want to go to the trouble of complaining for one dollar. But I would do this ten to twenty times per hour and came away with a whole lot of extra cash as a result.

I’m not proud of having done all this cheating and stealing. It’s really a shameful thing to have done. The only excuse I can try to offer is that I was very young. I started working part time around age 14 and continued off and on until I was about 30.

When I was in my twenties, I drove an “airport limousine”. That is really just a fancy name for a taxi that only takes people to and from the airport. There were many, many ways to cheat the customers in that business. If you ever take an “airport limo”, you need to be sure you know the fare in advance. Also, you need to know that if there are a group of people, the driver is only supposed to charge the fare once - to the entire group. One of the best ways drivers cheat the customers is to get 2 or 3 people who are going on a short trip and then charge each of them the fare that is supposed to be paid only once. But over-charging and short-changing are extremely common in that business too. In fact, they are very common in all businesses that accept cash.

The most important advice I can offer you is that when you pay by cash, always count your change and always have some idea of how much the total should be and if the cashier or driver (or whatever) asks you for significant more money, you really should have the total double checked.

If you only knew how often people were cheated when they pay cash, I think you would be absolutely flabbergasted.

Honest! :slight_smile:

2

I think broad brushes are in aisle 9 along with the bullshit meters.

3

I always count my change, and have since I was a kid.

But I’ve almost never found myself shortchanged by more than a dollar or two. I’ve been given too much change about as often as I’ve been shortchanged.

In my experience, very, very few cashiers are trying to cheat customers. If they shortchange me (or give me back too much), it’s usually a simple human mistake. If I find I have too much, I’ll give it back. If I find I’m a dollar short, I’ll point it out, and I’ve always gotten my correct change (along with a sheepish apology).

I’m sure there are devious cashiers out there, but I’ve been lucky enough never to encounter any.

4

Cool story, bro.

Needs a few editing passes tho.

My favorite part is where you say in one sentence that you aren’t going to talk about the types of people cashiers profile to scam, and literally the next sentence is how old people are perfect targets. That’s the sort of thing that a good editor will catch for you, and make your audition piece really stand out.

Got a few flow issues, and some tangents that either need trimming or expansion, but otherwise, it’s interesting.

5

I accept your criticism about how I said I didn’t want to talk about the various categories of people targeted. I offered just one of the most common categories because I thought people would expect to know just who was most often targeted.

Someone upthread said they were almost never cheated by more than a dollar or two. I can certainly believe that. In most casees, successful cheats do not try to cheat someone out of more than that. If they are caught, they put on a sheepish apology and are often forgiven and excused. The whole idea is to steal a small amount but sufficiently frequent that it is worthwhile. Also, if caught, stealing a very small amount makes it more likely that the thief will be excused.

The first time I went to Las Vegas, I sat down at a table with several elderly players and one of them put down a $20 and asked for chips. The dealer gave her $19 worth of chips and when I pointed that out, he was very, very sorry and the elderly lady acted as if I was a real villian for making the poor man feel so bad. I only had a brief window of time to decide whether to call over the pit boss and complain. What would you have done?
But perhaps I should not have pointed the finger at anyone particular category (like the elderly). As I predicted, that tends to get people angry and I can certainly understand why.

I’m very sorry about that. I should have known better and I hope you will accept that (accompanied by a “sheepish” look).

6

I count the bills, but never the coins. I have very rarely found them to be wrong, and when they were, it is was usually in my favor. And yes, I give it back. My integrity is worth more than a couple of ill-gotten bucks.

7

I always count my change. A few times I’ve given back money when the mistake was in my favor. I think once it was not and the cashier quickly corrected it. More commonly I *think *it’s wrong, but it’s just my own arithmetic that’s off! Ninety-nine point nine of the time it’s exactly right.

8

I glance at my change. If I’m handing over a 20 for a candy bar or something, I’ll skim the bills. But I don’t count every penny.

If something draws my attention, like the cashier pulling what should be a 10 out of where the 1’s belong, I’ll give a closer look, but that’s not usual.

9

I’m not sure I even use $1000 in cash a year. Most of the time when I’m paying cash I don’t bother waiting for change.

So no, I don’t count it. Unless I’m paying with a large bill for something of low value.

10

It’s no excuse at all and trying to offer one is pretty disgusting. The paragraph should have ended right after ‘shameful thing to have done’.

But yes, I always count my change, I was raised handling money and it’s force of habit as much as making sure I got back what I was supposed to.

11

I’ve never counted change on the assumption my time is worth more than the likely discrepancies I’d find, especially considering the pain of correcting the error.

12

As an honest cashier myself, I count the change back to the customer to make sure I got it right, and sanity-check the list of items rung up to make sure I didn’t bump the wrong spot on the screen and ring a phantom item (easy to do with the touch-screen registers I use).

If I wouldn’t want something done to me, I don’t do it to others. Simple way to keep some self-respect.

I do take a quick look at what I get back as a customer, just to make sure. As above, if there’s too much, I return the excess. If it’s low, I ask for clarification as kindly as I can, since human error does happen. I’ve done it myself, accidentally give a customer $8 instead of $13. I really had thought I’d grabbed 2 $5 bills, caught the error on count-back, and corrected it before the customer had a chance to get upset.

13

I very seldom run across a cashier who doesn’t count it back. I do give it a quick glance at drive thru’s. If I am using a 100.00 bill. I make sure I have enough 20’s.

14

Well, so far, it looks like I could be very mistaken.

Perhaps the job of cashier has changed since I used to do it.

If so, I’m very happy to hear that.

Maybe there is no need for everyone to count their change as I suggested.

Oh well, I think I may owe an apology to all current cashiers if I was indeed wrong about most of them being crooks.

If so, I am sorry. But, that was honestly my experience when I worked as a cashier.

15

The only time I"m super careful is with drinks at a very busy bar when I’m paying cash per drink. I’m sure some of the mistakes made are honest mistakes, it’s easy to forget that certain drinks are on special that night. But, I’m also aware that occasionally a bartender might overcharge because s/he is taking care of a couple friends or wants some extra pay that night. Plus, many bars don’t have a price list posted.

16

It’s not so easy for a cashier to stiff a customer as it used to be. Modern cash registers compute the change the customer should get. Old-time cash registers didn’t.

I do custom programming for a point-of-sale system, for a dealer who retails that system. He tells me that his customers (supermarket managers) tell him that customers watch that stuff like a hawk.

17

Just because you and the little gang of thieves you worked with did it does not make it universal.

18

“Is it all there?”

“Just barely.”

19

Bills, yes, but generally I am counting them as he is to save time. Coins, maybe I’ll look if it feels really wrong? But if the bill comes to $8.13, say, I am likely to pull out a quarter

Once, at a little deli, the cashier in counting out my change made a show of having to pry apart two bills sticking together when it was obviously just one bill. I told him, and he tried it again, perhaps thinking I’d be too embarrassed to call him on it a second time. I wasn’t. Never went back there.

20

So Charlie Wayne - since you always count your change, and you’re sure cashiers are always trying to rip you off, how often do you find that you are short-changed? 75% of the time? 80%? 90%?