"what do you mean I can't charge my phone in your store?!"

[marasbaras]

There are a few restaurants here in the Philippines in the city where I live that will let you charge your cell phone for a small charge while you shop. They all cater to the teens who are hopelessly addicted to their phones.

A half hour's charge is just about free ... maybe 5 cents in the States for my cell phone's mondo 500A charger. So, worrying about the cost is really not the issue.

Liability is one. I would've let her had she stayed with the phone. But, if she just wanted to leave ... forget it.

On the subject of Asia (I live in the Philippines and another poster mentioned Japan), I saw some pictures in the paper of a place somewhere in Hong Kong that has chargers for every phone known to mankind and our Alien Overlords. It was at a shopping mall, for like $5 you could drop off your phone for a charge. What amazed me was the sheer number of little wires ...

[roguesqd]

who actually carrys their plug in cell charger with them?? The only time mine has ever been unplugged from the wall was when we went on vacation for a week, and then it stayed in the hotel room

[IHateStupidCustomers]

Not to mention if something (not likely, although possible) like a power surge or something happened to his phone...or someone stepping on it or whatever...he'd try to sue the store or somehting!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

The outlets are store use only, but if for example she wanted to use the outlet simply to test something to see if it worked, I wouldn't have had a problem. That could be done quickly.

But she wanted to leave her phone in the store for probably close to an hour (30 minutes my butt). Let's say I let her do it and forget about the phone. I go about my business and manage to break it somehow. Then she probably would've come after our store to pay to repair her phone.

I just wasn't going to take the chance.

[B&NGoddess]

I would have been tempted to just let her plug it in, then once she leaves unplug it and stick it in the lost and found.

weve done that. people are allowed to use the outlets for their laptops and whatnot and we dont really care if they do just as long as theyre not obnoxious about it. recently though weve had people who will plug their phone in and leave and think that stashing the phone behind a couple of books prevents theft. we immediately unplug it and take it to info so we can reprimand the dumb sonuvabitch that thinks that its a good idea to leave your phone unattended.

[smileyeagle1021]

you know, now I feel kinda bad about plugging my laptop in at restaurants... then again I plug it in to recharge, I use a surge protector, and it's only there for the time I'm actually you know, eating... (few exceptions, there are times when I'll stay and do homework, but typically I will continue to buy small things every once in a while so it's not like I'm completely mooching).

[prb]

I plug in mine at Tim Hortons and Starbucks, but I purchase something.

[TruthHurts]

Back in my Burger King days we would have people want to charge their phones or laptops in the outlets. Now if they were customers no problem, but there were a few people who wanted to hang out and charge those things without buying anything. No amount of logic in the world could make them see why we could not allow them to do that.

[marasbaras]

you know, now I feel kinda bad about plugging my laptop in at restaurants... then again I plug it in to recharge, I use a surge protector, and it's only there for the time I'm actually you know, eating... (few exceptions, there are times when I'll stay and do homework, but typically I will continue to buy small things every once in a while so it's not like I'm completely mooching).

Don't. The very little power that your laptap uses is negligible. You can buy a small soda and easily pay for that power 10x over.

You should be more worried about using up table space for hours.

[LifeCarnie]

SC: Well I have some shopping to do at the Costco across the parking lot and my cell phone just died, I need to charge it.

The size of the "cajones" on a person who asks one store to let her charge her phone, while she shops at another is off of the chart. As a matter of fact, they need to invent a new unit of measure to record the size.

She wasn't even a customer, what she was doing was basically soliciting. I bet Costco sells the car charger for her phone!

[gunsage]

When I worked at the bus station, we'd often have people who wanted to charge their cell phones, laptops, and whatever else in available outlets. Now, as we were working security, we'd often use the excuse that it was a fire hazard. I'm not sure if that was the real reason or not, but that's what we used. The primary reason, if we were challenged on this, is we're not responsible for their personal belongings while they're in the terminal.

As such, it's still private property and we'll do whatever we goddamn want, more or less. Now, what would've been really fun is if those were designated charge stations for cattle prods to more effectively eject the hobos, but ah well. We eventually got to the point where we'd confiscate the items because there were signs pretty much everywhere and often you'd have people that would completely ignore it or, even worse, attempt to be totally sneaky about it.

There was one time where this dude deliberately moved an ATM slighly out so he could plug his cell phone into the free outlet next to the ATM's socket. Then, he proceeded to try to hide his cell phone behind it. Yeah. I saw the whole thing. I waited until he walked away like nothing happened, snatched it up, and walked on over to baggage claim. Never did find out if he ever got that back.