In our store if you’re in line when the light was still on we stay until you’re rung up.
We have chains to close off the aisle in front of the register when we’re closing down a line. I once had a lady ram the chain with her cart, insisting I was open.
Yeah, that’s really fun when I’m buying beer for a family picnic and shopping with my 4 year-old son and can’t buy the beer because “Sorry, you have a minor with you” :rolleyes:
“I don’t see why you won’t take my loyalty card!” :mad::mad::mad:
“Because it’s for <competitor>” :rolleyes:
Nineteen in 20 are embarrassed and let it pass. One in twenty gets pissy and thinks we should take it anyway. Um, NO.
“Your pumps won’t take <affiliated retailer’s discount card>. You need to fix that.”
“We can’t. You’ll need to speak to them about why it doesn’t work.”
“No, I’m HERE and it won’t take it. YOU fix it.”
“No, the computer checks with THEM, and they’re not accepting it. Talk to them.”
“I don’t want to talk to them, I’m here NOW.”
“Well good luck with that.”
“I’m going to complain to your manager!/your company!”
“Who will tell you to call that company about it.”
Or this one the other day, regarding the affiliated company’s discount card;
“Hi, I got gas here earlier and used my discount card to get 20 cents off a gallon. I forgot my card, but here’s the receipt and I want you to give me the same 20 cents per gallon filling this car too.”
“No, sorry, you have to have your card and you’ve used your points filling the first car”
“But it’s good for up to 20 gallons and I only got 8, so I want the discount for 12 gallons in this car.”
"No, sorry, 1> you need to have the card with you, and 2> It isn’t “20 gallons over the course of the day”.
“I demand my discount or I’m going to complain.”
“We’re not giving it to you, it doesn’t work that way, have a nice day.”
“Why doesn’t your store have Wifi?”
“Because we’re not a coffee shop and don’t have seats for you to just hang out all day using our wifi.”
“Well do you have phone chargers?”
“Yes, they’re over there on the rack”
“NOT TO BUY!!! I mean to use to charge my phone while I’m in your store!”
“No, we don’t provide that service and no one else does either.”
Are there parts of the country where this is illegal or something? This NEVER happens in the New Orleans area, and it never happened the four years we lived in Mississippi. Sounds like half the stores in your area do the survey thing at the cashier stand.
As it happens, I was in Office Depot yesterday, and as I was paying, I was asked for my phone number. I said the first thing I thought of, which was, “I don’t have one.”
When has that ever happened to you? A family out shopping isn’t suspicious and won’t ring alarms. You don’t look you’re buying the beer for your 4 year old. Your 4 year old isn’t going to plunk a can of beer on the counter. Clerks are expected to exercise common sense.
This is something else that must vary regionally. I might get the “Can I see an ID with your credit card?” about once or twice a year over hundreds of transactions. Even before chip cards.
“Well, they’re SUPPOSED to!!!” Is that a fact? :dubious: Then why don’t they ever? And apparently whatever mechanism from on high (at store corporate, at the CC company, etc.) is supposed to enforce ID checks … that mechanism is either toothless or rarely invoked.
Are they not asking you for a garden-variety price check at the register? Or are they asking you while you’re walking the floor, and then get upset at you if you can’t answer on the spot? If it’s the former … that seems to be all in a day’s work for a cashier.
From a customer perspective … this is always worth asking. Pays off about 1/4 of the time in my experience. It is incumbent on the customer to gracefully take “no” for an answer, however – even if the employee insists there’s none in the back without going in back to check.
Certain things can make it look like a cashier is getting ready to end their shift. An example would be a super-short one- or two-person line when other cashiers have long lines several people deep. A reasonable assumption is that you’ve called out to your final customer that you’re ending your shift, but you’re light stays on for whatever reason (e.g. can’t reach [common locally, customers typically turn off these lights for the cashier in some stores], etc.).
Sometimes – light or no light – a cashier just starting their shift can look open, but not be ready to take a customer for maybe another minute or two. You ask the cashier “Are you open?” as shorthand for “Are you ready to ring up customers right this moment, or do you need a few to get your station & drawer ready?”
It’s not “Can I see an ID with your credit card?”, it’s “Since you don’t have your credit card with you, I need to see an ID to verify that you are the person to whom the line of credit you want to use belongs to.”
That exact event happened to me in my craphole hometown. Grocery store sells beer there. Went to buy buns or whatever, and beer. “Sorry, can’t sell you the beer because you have a minor with you”
And further adventures of my craphole hometown, years ago, went to get a family portrait at Walmart while I was there during Thanksgiving. 3 cousins and I wanted to get a nice picture to give to our grandmother. Couldn’t, because one of my cousins was 17, and they couldn’t take a picture because of child pornography laws. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
This is the “Retail Stupidity” thread, right?
… I’m not familiar with that type of transaction.
Store credit? Like old fashioned 1950s store credit at Macy’s or Gimbel’s in NYC? I won’t say that’s unknown locally (even though I’ve not run across it) … but it has to be very uncommon. Maybe at very high-end retailers.
EDIT: Or else **Broomstick **meant trying to use a store credit card without the physical card. I see. Never would’ve thought that you could do that. Figured having to obtain a replacement card would be a hard & fast rule.
Yeah, it never occurred to me either as an option, but apparently it happens often enough to be aggravating.
The clerk might have common sense but not be allowed to use it.
The Walmarts around us started doing that - no alcohol sales unless everyone in the party was over 21. We got some new customers from that! My store lets us use common sense, Walmart’s drones weren’t given a choice.
Good point. Store policy can often be inflexible and the average employee can lose their job if they don’t follow policy strictly.
On the other hand…
I’m the jerk who’s complained to the manager about cashiers not checking my ID when there are signs saying they will. Hey, if they say they’ll do it for my security, I expect them to doe it every time to everyone! :mad:
When I go to my bank and they ask me for ID I thank them for doing so. I’ve been told some people get VERY upset at the request. Which is stupid, why would you NOT want people to make sure only you are spending your money?
People will come up to you on the floor and ask you for the price of an item. If i’m not at the register and I don’t know it, the best I can do is ask you to go to the register for a price check. Some people get nasty about it.
People also ask if we carry the item they want. An item we have never carried and will never carry, like cigarette lighters. And when you say “I’m sorry we don’t carry those,” they will ask “Why not?” I had this exchange with one such person:
I’m sorry, we don’t do the buying for the store.
Well, who does?
Uhhh… the buyers?"
In my local Safeway the bread is on the opposite side of the store of the peanut butter and jelly. :mad:
A market near me years ago redesigned their layout three times in two years. The biggest frustrating switch? They moved butter from the dairy case in the back of the store to a stand-alone refrigerator unit in the middle of the baking aisle.
Good God, how how much time are they expecting to spend in a convenience store? If you absolutely can’t go a few moments without your music (or whatever), use your network connection!
Just yesterday I was in Michael’s waiting for the one open cashier to finish with her customer. Another cashier arrived, did cashiery things behind her register, set down her soda cup, and snapped on her light. As I stepped up I said, “When the light comes on, it’s official.” She laughed.