Give it back. It’s not my money.
Give. It. Back.
Its not mine, and I’m no thief. besides, I know what they hire as 1st line managers and that kid doesn’t deserve the Sadist Orgasm speech.
“So, your drawer is short. Where did you hide it, thief? What did you do, have family come in, give away stuff and lose count? Its doesn’t matter, we have cameras everywhere and we’ll find what you did with it, thief.
Don’t play dumb with me. Don’t you know I’m smarter than you? That’s why I’m the manager, peon. You sit right there til the cops get here & don’t you move a muscle or I’ll Zimmerman your ass…”
Keep it.
Apparently I have no shame.
Definitely give it back if I notice but I don’t usually count my change so there is a rather large chance that I wouldn’t notice. Luckily I rarely use cash now. Tap’n’pay debit is my new bestest friend.
I only had one occasion like** sinjin’s**, where a cashier was downright rude to me when I tried to hand back an extra twenty. She vehemently refused to accept it, so I walked out the door and donated the money to the nearest group collecting for charity (that day, it happened to be a local animal rescue. The day before, it might have been Girl Scouts or the women’s shelter. I didn’t care, it wasn’t my money.) Same store, different day, I went back to pay when I got to the car and realized that I had accidentally walked out without paying for a 98¢ lip pencil because it was hidden under the toddler in the cart.
Just yesterday, that same toddler - now age 16, and six feet tall - teased me about being such a straight arrow after I pointed out to the clerk that he hadn’t rung in my son’s drink. I told the boy that, if I’m going to lose sleep over a theft, that it would have to be enough to buy me comfortable surroundings for my insomnia!
I give it back.
And making change is ridiculously easy – you don’t even have to know how to subtract. You just count up.
For example:
Amount: $7.27
Cash given: $20
7.27, 28, 29, 30 (pennies), 50 (two dimes), 8 (two quarters), nine, ten (dollars), 20 ($10).
Happened to me this morning. A new clerk at the place I buy my oatmeal almost every morning gave me my usual large size, but only charged me for the small. I didn’t realize until she gave me too much change. I pointed out that I had purchased the large, and she got flustered and called over the manager, who usually runs the register and knows me really well. The manager told me not to worry about, and let me keep the excess change. I went with it, since one of these days the error will be the other way, and it will all even out.
I always mention it to the clerk, if only to see the pleasntly surprised look on their face.
Normally I would give it back. However, a while back, while shopping at Target, I paid with a combination of gift cards and cash. I knew something wasn’t right when he gave me change but couldn’t process exactly what went wrong with the transaction. As I was driving the 45 minutes home, I replayed it in my head and realizing the cashier would be short, I called the store from my car. I explained the situation, told them the name of the cashier and said I would bring the money in the next day since I was on the highway heading home and work in the area. The supervisor responded. “YOU NEED TO BRING OUR MONEY BACK RIGHT. NOW.” The more I tried to make her understand that I wasn’t going to turn around the nastier she got. I never went back and to this day feel bad that this young cashier may have gotten into trouble but I was so angry with his supervisor that I was never going to step foot in that store again.
remind the kid that he started shoplifting at an early age.
I would have taken it to the manager. I don’t want the person to lose their job for making a mistake, but rudeness to a customer ain’t ok.
I always say something when I get too much change. It’s surprising how often it happens and it’s down right shocking how many clerks want to argue when I’m trying to hand them money. They seem to think I’m up to something. Maybe they’ve never made a mistake before? If they want to fight about it I just say 'fine" and keep it.
They may be concerned you’re about to pull the Quick Change scam on them - but most of the time, I think it’s just the human tendency to yell “no I didn’t!” when you mention they made a mistake.
This is my experience quite often. I prefer to give it back, but quite a few cashiers don’t want to deal with it.
There are a number of change scams out there. “Oh, here, give me back my five and I’ll give you some ones instead …”. So cashiers are sometimes drilled into avoiding anything that smacks of this.
You know, I’ve always done this when I’m working a concession stand for one group or another. It seems so simple, but it’s like rocket science to most people working at a cash register. Around here most have the cash registers that tell them how much to give in change, but sometimes they input the wrong amounts and get totally screwed up.
I wouldn’t even look at the register until I made change, then make sure the register is right so that I don’t have a shortage.
One other thing that I don’t understand. Do not put the money in the register until you have made change. That way there is no question how much was paid.
I’ll be honest here: After her rudeness and stupidity? I really didn’t feel too terrible at the notion of the cashier losing her job. Besides, at the time, I was about five months pregnant, had picked up the boy from daycare after work, run to the store to pick up household stuff, and still had to rush home to let the dog out and tackle dinner and laundry and stuff. I was too tired to deal with waiting around for a manager!
As for “counting up” change? My head doesn’t work like that. I look at the numbers and know what the change is, but I do count it back into the hand of the recipient. (And then I move the bill from the top of the till into the correct slot.)
I certainly see the virtue in this, but I would have been paranoid that the bill(s) blow away or something. Putting them away under the flippy till thing at least kept them secure.
They don’t always know what to do but they usually go ahead and ring it up as is. Only once or twice has someone said I gave them too much and I tell them go ahead, please ring it up that way.
I guess if it’s windy then maybe a little paper weight of some sort.
Usually I’m working at a carnival for some charity when I’m behind a register. I’ve never had a problem with it blowing away while sitting on top of the drawer, but I guess it could be a problem at times.
If they’re so dumb they can’t count, that’s not your problem.
This is rare now that so much of a cashier’s work is semi-automated.
I did once get an extra hundred dollar bill from the bank, found it when I got to the car and returned it. In a bank they don’t dock your pay, they fire you.