It’s not always the customer who is the problem. Some stores do make mistakes.
To clarify further: whether fast food is covered by food stamps can vary. The Restaurant Meals Program (here’s Arizona’s program, but it is also available in Illinois, parts of California, and some other areas) is an optional SNAP program that a state can offer, allowing certain people (such as the homeless and disabled) to use their food stamp benefits at participating restaurants, including fast food places. Oregon had a hot foods waiver during the wildfires last year, allowing SNAP recipients to purchase hot foods at participating retailers, and other areas have had similar waivers during other disasters.
I always get a receipt when I’m paying with a credit card. I check them against my credit card bill to make sure everything matches; then I shred them.
I think it’s a little weird that some people decline or toss the receipts, then blithely assume that everything on their credit card bill is correct. For example, when I buy gas, I’ll often see that the previous customer has left the receipt hanging out of the pump. 
But I’ve been a victim of fraud several times, so my perspective might be different.
I look pretty closely at my credit card statements, and check my bank activity (debit card) several times a week. The only problems I’ve ever had have been discovered by my bank before there would have been a chance for me to catch it. I throw away receipts as soon as I get them, and decline when asked.
So, I’m not blithely assuming my bill is correct, but the receipts for things I’m actually buying won’t help if a charge shows up for something I didn’t buy.
For personal transactions, I don’t mind skipping the receipt at fast food restaurants. However, I will never walk out of a convenience store without a receipt no matter how small the purchase is. I’m a Black male and my parents drilled it into my head that I must always get a receipt and a bag with any purchase ever since I was old enough to go to the store with my own money. That small and simple practice has helped me avoid dozens of situations that could’ve escalated beyond a “simple inquiry” by overzealous associates, security personnel, and a few cops.
I used to travel regularly for business (about 2 times a quarter) and we always need receipts for all transactions on the company cards. It always amused me when the accounting department would track me down for small purchases on the AmEx since we use that card for very large purchases, but one of my friend explained it pretty well. They expect flights, hotel bookings, and equipment purchases in the $10k+ range, but it’s the $3 purchases on that card that make them nervous 
Yes indeed! I would always eat breakfast at the hotel (if offered) or somewhere quick and cheap. Waffle House and IHOP are nice if you have the time. Otherwise, Dunkin gets the job done.
When I worked in e-commerce I was in charge of replying to the transaction disputes and we had a standing order to just provide documentation and give back the money if AmEx filed. We routinely won our disputes with other card companies, but we never really bothered with AmEx disputes.
I’m a member of a demographic that gets profiled for shoplifting/theft.
I’m getting the receipt. Especially if the cash register isn’t right next to the door or if I plan to stop anywhere else before dropping off the bag in my car or going home. For fast food, if they hand the food straight to me when I order, maybe not. But if I have to wait and come back to the counter, I will have the receipt in my hand when I pick up my food. I need to be able to prove that I bought the things I’m carrying.
Near my home, there’s a drug store that I’ve been going to for years - they know me, I know them and the register is very close to the door. I don’t always get a receipt when I stop off for something there - unless I’m picking up a prescription from the pharmacy in the back of the store and buy a few odds and ends at the same time - then, I get a receipt.
some places like REI and Home Depot offer email receipts. I always take the email option.
Then you have drug store receipts that are about a mile long.
I know it’s not where you were going with this, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read that.
I used to do this, but I found that this sometimes results in the store signing you up for marketing emails.
I remember accepting the offered email receipt at a Kmart years ago. Great idea, I thought. Then I was DELUGED with emails. Of course, I quickly opted-out (and, at the time, Kmart would show you an annoying video of a guy begging you to reconsider when you did that). But if you went back to Kmart and got another email receipt, you were opted-in again and the email deluge restarted. 
Yeah - “Just email me the receipt” is really “Just sign me up for unlimited spam”. No thanks!
I scan my checking account statement and my credit card statement for unexpected transactions. But only when I get those statements once a month. If somebody slipped an extra purchase in at my usual groc store or gas station for a typical amount I’d probably never be the wiser. But that’s not the risk.
The risk is somebody skimming my card then buying hundreds of dollars of stuff at places I don’t shop, probably hundreds or thousands of miles from where I am. A quick scan down the printout once a month covers that risk. And at nil effort.
IMO receipts are for facilitating returns. If I don’t expect to return, or expect to be able to return, the item, the receipt goes in the trash on the way out the door unless I could prevent them giving me one in the first place.
YMMV of course.
I don’t know if there’s a law that says a receipt must be provided upon request for any sale, but I’m pretty sure it’s a requirement for the use of credit cards. The credit card companies have the record of all the sales though, a receipt is more necessary for cash sales.
Anyway, I never take any receipts for consumables. I’m not expensing anything so they’d be worthless to me.
I always ask for a receipt, because the physical receipt is my reminder to enter the info into my budgeting program, as well as my reminder of how much I spent and what I spent it on.
My SO once bought something for $7.99 at a convenience store with a debit card. We found out after that he was charged $799.00 (it was a mistake on the cashier’s part, not an attempted theft). It was a nightmare to get fixed and we knew the people at the store. They knew it was a mistake and tried to help fix it as quickly as possible, which was still not quick. If I remember correctly, it was about 5 days before the money was replaced. In the meantime, checks had bounced, etc. So yes, I do get a receipt and make sure the amount is correct.
Rule one of safe consumer finance: never use a debit card; always use a credit card. That would have completely prevented the problems you had.
I’m often wondering how we spent $100, crap! It’s just a few things. So I always get the receipt, which allows me to go, ‘yep, yep, yep, I guess it’s right!’
But, also, I do quite often find an error in some form. Today I was buying vitamins, they were marked $12 and change, plus a couple of other small things, when I checked my receipt I’d been charged $19 and change! I went back in and asked, together we went to the display and the clerk realized the labels were switched, and straightened them out. No big deal!
I figure if it’s $245 instead of $24.50, I’d like to know before I get home. Shrug! I always get a receipt.
Never. Even when I used to travel on business, I never turned in fast food receipts. Admittedly, we used to game the system by using most of the expense account money for drinks at the hotel bar.
This was 15 years ago or so and it was a small sub office of a big company, my manager was allowed to approve expenses since we were so tiny and had so little business travel from there
I have formally proposed (well, ranted to my wife about, actually) that the whole thing needs to change.
NOBODY should give you a receipt UNLESS you ask for one! Just make no-receipt the default. Anyone who wants or needs one can have one for the asking. Otherwise, no. When did it become the default that every single purchase means I also get a useless little slip of paper?
If the default became no receipt, the 90% (actual established factual percentage) of times that it’s completely wasted would be eliminated, and for the 10% when it’s wanted, they could still have it.
My modest proposal.
I went to Greece the summer before last, where I learned that apparently over there restaurants are required by law to give you a receipt and display it on the table, and in fact if they don’t you’re not obligated to pay. And they have to print that on their menu. I was told the reason is because tax evasion was such a problem there, and requiring a receipt means they’ve run the transaction through the register and created a record of the transaction, making it harder to under report the income to the Greek tax authorities. Previously it wasn’t uncommon for the owner to just pocket the cash and not report it as income.
By toffee, did you mean coffee? And by coffee, did you mean Hawaiian Kona?
There’s no way he would use a credit card for a $7 transaction. What made it a particular nightmare was that the store owner tried to fix it on his end the next morning and then it became bigger issue on the bank’s end. It was years ago, I don’t remember the details, but it’s a good reason to check your receipt regardless of what method you are using to pay.