My wife and I once got a very nice artificial Christmas tree during the after-Christmas sales, because we were getting sick of the headaches associated with real trees (sap, needles, watering, etc.).
It was a 50% off sale, and we were buying the the display model with price tag of $160. The saleslady scanned it in, and it came up $80. She then started trying to figure out how to apply the 50% off. “That is the 50% off price,” we repeatedly told her, but she replied, “No, it’s supposed to be 50% off of the $80.” After several rounds of arguing with her, she finally figured out how to charge us for just $40. We got tired of arguing with her, paid the $40, and left.
I was buying a pair of pants that were supposed to be on sale for $16.99. The cashier rang them up and told me the total was something like $2.67.
I said, “That can’t be right – these were supposed to be on sale for $16.99.”
She said, “Oh, well, there wasn’t a tag on them.” [OK, so then how did she arrive at that price?] “Can you go back and find one with a tag?”
OK, so I went back and found one with a tag (the department was right next to the register), and she rang it up correctly. No thanks for not walking out with a $17 pair of pants for less than $3. Or for correcting her error in surmising that a new pair of pants might cost more than $3 (this wasn’t Saks, but neither was it Goodwill).
I’ve got a bunch of stories for this thread, but here’s the most recent one:
I went to my college homecoming this weekend, and our rugby social was at the bar most of the college kids frequent. I was quite inebriated, and had probably run up a tab of about $100 by that point. When I got my check, it was $218. I looked at the receipt, and there must have been at least 20 Stella Artois. I didn’t even know that bar -had- Stellas, so I told the bartender that wasn’t my tab. He said, “what did you have, then?” I named off about half a dozen drinks I remembered ordering, and when I got the tab back it was $18.75. I wasn’t going to give him my card back to run again, so I just tipped them really well.
I don’t have a particularly interesting story, but I do have a question.
Here in Australia, we are just getting our first US-style “drug stores”. Of all the evils the Great Satan sends our way, I think this one is fantastic. Picking up a loaf of bread and some milk at the “chemist shop” while you get your scripts filled? I like it. But I digress. I went into my local one the other day, and the cashier wasn’t actually that busy (she was bagging somebody’s stuff as I arrived as the second customer), but suddenly the internal phone rang, the customer ahead of me asked something just as the cashier had thought she was done with her and while she was ringing up my sale, etc.
In the end, she gave me change of a $20 when I’d actually given her a $50. I pointed this out to her, and she said, “Oh, you’re joking, right?” This was not delivered in an “I don’t trust you” way, but more in an “Oh, shit. A stressful shift, just what I don’t need right now” way. I told her that no, I wasn’t joking. At this point, I should say that we seemed to like one another (as far as you can in this sort of interaction). We’d both been happy, friendly and polite with the usual small talk. So I felt sorry for her, and also, I could tell she somehow knew I was telling the truth. She apologised and said she’d have to call the manager to get the till counted. I said that was fine.
Now the question: I was waiting for a guy to come and take the cash tray, but instead he came, heard what had happened and left. Turns out there’s some new-fangled system where he can remotely weigh the entire tray (Australian banknotes are different sizes for different denominations, and it seems this system has some pretty darn sensitive scales). He came back eventually and gave me my $30. There were mondo apologies, and I did make a point of being happy and understanding, and explicitly stating that the woman had been flustered by three things happening at once (I didn’t want her to get chewed out by the boss after I left - but I guess she was). My question is what would have happened if the boss - after using this none-too-transparent weird back-room weighing system, had come back and said that there was no discrepancy? I know that I would have made a scene, and would have refused to leave the store without my $30. Then I suppose the cops would come and force me to leave. THen I would have asked those cops to charge them with theft. Etc etc etc. Ugliness city.
Would I have been S.O.L.? It seems like a flawed system.
Here’s some good advice. Take the batteries to the the service desk and tell them you found these with your paid for groceries. Don’t try to sneak them from your purse to the retail shelf, because if your caught at that point they may conclude your currently loading it into your purse.
Yes children especially babies are used to steal much from stores. They are one of the things loss prevention will scrutinize.
Similar thing happened to me. I decided to pick up an absurdly overpriced souvenir tank top at the team shop at a sporting event. At $25, it was the most affordable item, though I really wanted the $70 hoodie. At the register, the clerk scanned the tank top and it rang up $7. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Is there a sale or something?” She just shrugged, and clearly didn’t care one iota, nor recognize that nothing in that store was under $20, so I paid cash and left.
I guess I’m not all that ethical, because I convinced my boyfriend to go back and try to buy the hoodie, in case the same error came up, but apparently by then they had fixed it. Oh well, I consider that $7 was really the right price to pay for the tank top anyway. I mean $25? Come on!
