seems like a big waste of paper. Now chick fil a here is drive though only and they ask if you want a receipt. I would guess at least 90% say no. In fact there is one person and all they do is ask you if you want the receipt. Very boring job. I don’t think people on expense accounts eat fast food unless they are in a hurry.
My husband likes to have receipts for everything on the credit card. I wouldn’t want the receipt if I were paying cash. Unless I was on a business trip. I often eat fast food when I travel on business, but it’s airport fast food, not drive through fast food.
I’m not sure when I last got one before today. I bought a sandwich for a (I assumed) homeless person and didn’t want them to get hassled before they left, so I asked for the receipt and gave it to her.
When I pay with food stamps, I like to get a receipt. This is because it will show my remaining balance for the month.
If I’m traveling on business, even if I’m only grabbing a fast food sandwich somewhere, I do need the receipt, for my expense report. Otherwise, no, I don’t want nor need it.
I think some people want a receipt so they can check the amount and make sure they weren’t overcharged.
People on expense accounts, maybe not, but, say, grad students traveling to conferences when their department offers (a limited amount of) reimbursement? Heck, yeah.
I feel the need to clarify.
Fast food places are NOT covered by food stamps. Food at a convenience store (except any food that is served hot) generally is covered.
I am on an expense account whenever I travel for work (which means not at all in the past year, but prior to COVID, probably once a month or so for the past 30 years). And,
- Yes, it is not uncommon to be in a hurry.
- Unless I’m out to dinner with colleagues or clients, it’s not uncommon for me to be eating fast food (or fast casual) when I’m by myself. I don’t have particularly fancy tastes in food, and I probably eat fast food more often than I should, strictly speaking.
I’d actually say that the majority of my fast food purchases are when I am traveling for business. When I’m home I “go out to eat” if I want something nice. But when I’m traveling I need to buy all my meals out, and fast food is cheap and simple. And fast.
(I rarely have a car on a business trip, though, as I usually end up in a major city and stay in one place. So… not at a drive through. But on some other job I can see it.)
Here’s my WAG about this:
- There is a small proportion of people who need a receipt (mostly for expense reports)
- There is an even smaller proportion of people who are really meticulous about their personal bookkeeping
- Finally, there is also a small proportion of people who are going to raise a stink about their order being incorrect, or suspect that they have been charged incorrectly for their order (and, IME, a lot of them are not terribly pleasant people)
Having your staff automatically offer a receipt to every customer (rather than having them only provide a receipt if explicitly asked for one) helps protect the store and its employees from the worst behavior of the third group.
And, honestly, cash registers that automatically print out a customer receipt have been pretty much the standard at retail businesses for many decades.
As someone that works in a c-store type store (and have my entire life), I can say that a solid 50% of people want their receipt, or at least will take it when offered. Maybe 10% actively want/need/ask for it.
Anything from needing to submit receipts for reimbursement to double checking they were charged correctly (and/or their credit card charge was the same as the amount the register said) to just being anal about hanging on to all that kind of stuff and everything in between.
I always ask for my receipt if I paid with a credit card. I also take it at a grocery or department store, because you never know when you might have a “Take a survey and maybe win a gift card for our store” thing on it. 
Offering the receipt is also done when there’s any possibility that someone could be a secret shopper.
Nah, the people in that group will look for something to be mad about. We’ve had to ‘fire’ a few customers over the years because we know if we see them in the store there’s going to be an argument. Either while they’re there and when they get home and call us.
The most recent customer we fired over this kind of thing would shop at our store about once a week. And every.single.time, she’d call as soon as she got home and accuse us of deliberately overcharging her. Even though she had everything, all with price stickers on it and the receipt that reflected all those items and their prices, she was still certain we were ripping her off. The final straw was during one of those arguments after we argued in circles about how there’s nothing on her receipt that she didn’t get and everything was rung up correctly, then she turned to complaining about a rotten apple or something along those lines. No problem, come back, we’ll swap it for you. She instead went to her credit card company and disputed the $100+ charge over a single bad apple that we offered to replace.
We won the dispute.
Oh, and how did she spend $100 on produce and odds and ends at a little c-store. Well, she bought a $35 box of toffee, a few quarts of soup at $10/qt, some wine and we’re already North of $60. I understand when you don’t realize how much you spent and it catches you off guard, but just look at your stuff, look at the prices, look at your receipt.
Didn’t matter. She’s one of those ‘you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into’ people.
Anyone that’s spent any amount of time in retail has plenty of customers that they know their next half hour is ruined when they see them walking in. Customers can be assholes, story at 10.
Not really. But it isn’t a terrible idea to have something in case a part of the order is forgotten or some other unlikely problem. Might need to expense it. Often fast food receipts have free tchotchkes for filling out surveys, though I rarely take advantage.
Yikes!
How much did it cost you to fight it?
If I’m traveling on business I want a receipt. And yes, even with an “expense account” (actually a per diem) I do eat at fast food while traveling. Perhaps you’re assuming that the allowance for food on a business trip is some huge amount. For most worker bees no, it isn’t. It’s enough to eat adequately, but not a lavish repast.
When I review my household budget, which I do from time to time, I ask for receipts for everything for a month as part of that review so I know what I’m actually spending money on.
^ This. I find that members of groups that, shall we say, are more often subjected to suspicion and distrust than the average well-to-do members of society very often want that receipt.
^ This. When someone new to food stamps comes to my register at work I like to point out that feature to them. Although as @DocCathode notes this would be more applicable to convenience stores than fast food emporiums.
^ And this.
When I’m running a register I always offer a receipt because it keeps the subsets that need/want one happy and no one has (yet) yelled at me for offering one.
I think Amex charges the merchant $15 or $25 for the privilege of having a charge disputed, even if you win.
Coincidentally, my notes from that case just happened to be in a file cabinet I was looking though. Turns out she spent $258.78. One of the lines in my letter back to Amex was "later that day she called back, very angry, saying that she ‘doesn’t appreciate being ripped off’ because some of her apples had brown spots on them’.
I’ve mentioned in other threads that I wish there was a way to prevent her from using her credit card in our store. People usually explain that I’m allowed to tell her she’s no longer welcome, but that’s not the point. Besides I can’t be on the lookout for her all day. I’d just prefer that if she does shop here, she uses cash so at least when she finds something to get mad about, and she always does, I don’t have to foot the bill for her groceries.
I used to get a receipt every time I used my card, because it’s a debit card and I’m tracking my current checking account balance. I stopped when the pandemic started, to have less of a transmission vector there, figuring to sort it all out later. But it’s still a good reason, especially if you like your reconciliation accounting to always work out to the penny.
Same here. The only time I need a receipt is when I need to complete an expense report for work. I try to eat something better than fast food when I can charge the company, but sometimes you don’t have time.