I apologize for being right. Here's ten bucks.

[CarcinogenCrunchies]

Tonight at the fuel station, I had two people pull the same tired scam on me within about ten minutes of each other. One of the first customers I rang up put down a ten, two fives and two ones. His total was under $15, so I picked out a ten and a five, held them up and (as I always do) said clearly, "Out of fifteen," and gave him the change. He starts to put the other bills away and says, "Wait, wasn't one of those a twenty?"

Me: No, sir. There was twenty dollars there, with your ten and two fives, but I only needed $15 so I left the other bills on the counter.

SC1: Are you sure? I swear I gave you a twenty.

Me: I can open the drawer and see. If you gave me a twenty, it will be in the tens spot. (Open drawer, see the ten I just put there in the tens spot. It was actually not even all the way under the clip.) Sorry, it was a ten.

SC1: All right, then.

He leaves. A few minutes later we get a phone call, which I have the pleasure of answering.

SC1: Yes, I was just in and gave your cashier a twenty dollar bill, and she only gave me change for a ten.

Me: Okay, I can take your name and number, we'll count the drawer, and if it's over by ten dollars we'll call so you can come pick it up.

The manager happens to be in, so I call him over explain the situation. A CW who was standing behind me at the time confirms that he saw only a ten and five, no twenties. Boss Man says to just wait a few minutes, call him back and say we owe him the money. He says the register is probably off by a few dollars, and there will be no way to tell if that's the reason why, so it's better to just give him the benefit of the doubt and not risk losing all his future business over ten bucks.

Me: Well, you can call the guy if you want, but I'm not gonna do it. I know what I put in, and CW was standing right there and saw it, too.

BM: I believe you, but do you understand what I'm saying? It doesn't really matter whether you're right or not.

Me: It does to me.

So it's decided that someone else will make the call, and I go about my business. A few minutes later, a woman comes in to pay for $5 in gas. Of course, at this time I'm being extra careful to hold all bills up so the camera can see them, and clearly state to the customer what they gave me. SC2 gives me a ten dollar bill, and I give her $5 back.

SC2: That was a twenty.

Me: (SERIOUSLY??? Am I on Candid Camera or something?) No ma'am, it was a ten. I'm positive of it.

SC2: And I'm positive it was a twenty! That's all I had, a twenty, and now it's not in here. See? (opens up her wallet and shoves it at me)

Me: BM, could you please come over here?

At this point I am done, because I know what's about to happen. The bitch is going to get ten bucks of the store's money. I go into the back room, shaking with anger and with tears starting to well up. All I can hear through the door is the woman ranting about her twenty dollars. I take a couple of minutes to cool off and let my face return to a less vivid shade of red. When I come back, I tell BM that it was all a bit too coincidental to me. He replies, "Yeah, it is a little weird, isn't it?" Yeah...just a tad. I tell him I'd like him to review the video and let me know what he sees.

At some point during the evening, SC1 returns to collect our-- excuse me, HIS ten bucks. At the end of the night, we count the drawer. Three guesses how much it was short, and the first two don't count.

So my CW (who is an asst. manager in the main store) writes a note to the accounting staff explaining what happened, that he witnessed it and I was in the right. It was nice to be proven correct, but there are still two assholes out there who have ten extra dollars and an unnecessary boost to their false sense of entitlement. GRRRR.

[JLG]

I have had that happen to me a couple of times already this year. When the cashier calls me up and tells me that they are certain the customer did not give them a $20 bill I immediately pull their drawer to count it in the cash office.

I tell the customer that we will be right back before they can even speak. Every single time I have done this the drawer is spot on and when we walk out of the office the customer is no where to be found

I don't get why your manager said to just give him the money because you don't want to lose the customers business over it. I think these are the type of customers that you would want to lose

[Sir Spaniard the 12th]

I agree with the last sentence above. They didn't spend money there. They got cheap (or free) product. That's not good customer service. It's being suckered. Why would the person in charge do a quick count of the till?

[CarcinogenCrunchies]

That was exactly what I thought. Now that they know they can get money out of us with just a little bit of complaining, they'll be back to scam us all the time. Great repeat business, there.

I was all in favor of pulling and counting the drawer right then, and especially after the second one. I was going to demand it, but I opted instead to take no part in it. I was just too angry.

[Nyx]

He says the register is probably off by a few dollars, and there will be no way to tell if that's the reason why, so it's better to just give him the benefit of the doubt and not risk losing all his future business over ten bucks.

What "business"!? If all he's going to do is come in and take money then good riddance.

Seriously that made me mad reading it, your boss is a fg idiot! Hope someone higher up chews him out for giving away money.

[bean]

About a month ago, I saw a guy arguing with one of our cashiers, saying he gave her a $20, when he gave her a $1. She wound up caving in and giving him the money. She was off $19 that night. We don't get writeups until we're $50 off (either at once or over a few days), but it was still embarrassing for her.

He tried to hit me with the same thing a few days ago - I recognized him, and he was even making the exact same purchase (a bottle of water). Total was $1.19. He handed me $1.25. I said "out of $1.25?" and he nodded, I entered it and the register said I owed him 6 cents, which I already knew.

As soon as I handed him his change, he said "I gave you a $20!". I ALWAYS leave the plastic... clip.. thingies.. what do you call those anyway? up on the slots I've used before I close the drawer. The only one up was the one on the singles. I told him this. He pointed in my drawer at a $20 and said "Let me see that one, that looks like mine".... and started to reach toward the drawer.

I slammed the drawer shut and told him "Sir, if there's a problem, we'll get a manager over here right now and count my drawer. If it doesn't balance, you'll get your money back with no problem and an apology from myself and management."

He asked me if I was absolutely positive I got a single from him, I told him yes, I was positive, and would you like me to call the store manager over to count my drawer? He said "Well if you're positive... have a good day, thanks" and nearly ran out the door. Management has also instructed me to call them if I ever see him in the store again. He's scammed at least 2 cashiers so far (successfully). If there's EVER any question about what they've handed me, I bring a manager over and count my drawer right then, in front of the customer. So far I've only had to have a manager do that twice (and both times I was right).

I still wound up calling a manager over and counting my drawer right then and there. It balanced to the penny, and balanced to the penny again at the end of my shift. I've been handling cash for 9 years now (first in pizza delivery, then as a manager at papa john's, and now as a cashier), and I'm extremely OCD about my money. My boss calls me "zero hero" because my drawer almost always balances to the penny.. and when it doesn't, it's only off by loose change.

[alowlypotato]

What "business"!? If all he's going to do is come in and take money then good riddance.

Seriously that made me mad reading it, your boss is a fg idiot! Hope someone higher up chews him out for giving away money.

Ditto. That's so incredibly asinine! You don't let a scammer get away with it because you're afraid of pissing them off -- who cares if they get pissed off? And who cares if they never come back? That'd be a GOOD thing.

That's like refusing to prosecute a shoplifter because "oh, wouldn't wanna lose a customer! Hyuk!"

[jerkface11]

Do they not train these people? Even my thickest management trainees know better than to just give money away. If they didn't they'd be paying it back out of their pocket.

[Fast_Eddie]

Had a similar thing happen to me while I was working the customer service desk. Some asshole goes through the express lane, makes his purchase, and is owed $5.xx in change. Cashier gives it to him, closes the till, and moves on to the next customer as the asshole starts to walk away. He makes it about three steps, then turns around and says "where's my $5 bill?"

Cashier finishes with the next customer, I go out and pull the till, explain to the asshole that we're going to count it right here, right now, and that if she really didn't give him his $5, the till should be $5 over. I show him the paperwork that shows exactly how much money should be in the till, count it directly in front of him twice, and it's bang on both times.

Asshole blows his lid, starts screaming about how wonderful a customer he is and that we're going to lose thousands of dollars in business if we don't give him his $5. I shrug, point to the paperwork, and tell him that it's clearly his fault, not ours, that he doesn't have his five bucks anymore, and walk away to call a manager. Manager immediately orders me to just give the guy $5, I refuse, and so he does it himself and kisses asshole's rear end in the process.

Five minutes later, asshole comes back in ... he found his $5 bill in his bag (sur-fucking-prise!) and would like to speak to the manager. Does he apologize to the cashier? No. Does he apologize to me? No. He just wants to thank the manager for giving him the benefit of the doubt (because zero discrepancy in the till count created all sorts of doubt, apparently). Fuck that guy ... I'm not waiting on him ever again, and he knows it. I told the manager that if that's how we're going to handle it, I'm not counting the fucking till anymore -- it's a waste of time. I'll just start giving money away as a first step and get back to whatever it was I was doing. I get paid either way -- if they want to just give money away, make that the policy and be done with it.

[EricKei]

CC - It is now your duty to inform your manager that your store is now listed on that amorphous Grand List of Shops that Can Easily Be Scammed due to Manager Stupidity . Expect attempts along these lines to increase over the next few days or weeks >_>

[EvilEmpryss]

The first place I worked taught me a trick I used everywhere I worked after that, regardless of the business' policy: All bills are placed either on the little ledge above the cash drawer or across the drawer's bill slots until the change is counted back and the customer accepts it.

Oh, and I *always* count back the change the right way: "Okay, that's $3.75 out of ten. That's four (drop a quarter in their hand) five (place a dollar in their hand) and five is ten (put a five in their hand)." I hesitated the briefest moment to make sure it clicked with the customer and then put the money away and closed the drawer.

It takes a moment longer, but I was never caught out on that scam (the bills were either on the drawer or in my hand when they tried) and my till was always balanced because I counted change twice (once when I take it out of the drawer, again when I count it to the customer).

[sms001]

so it's better to just give him the benefit of the doubt and not risk losing all his future business over ten bucks.

So. To your boss' way of thinking, would me stealing $100 instead of $10 make me a BETTER customer than your scammer?

Maybe you should dig up and print out some of the articles on the 'net about the trend toward firing customers for him to read.

He tried to hit me with the same thing a few days ago - I recognized him, and he was even making the exact same purchase

What makes me mad is that these people think they're inconspicuous and unobserved. Uh. No. I'm focused on what I'm doing, and I REMEMBER YOU. This isn't some subjective, "Oh, you look kinda like some other guy maybe..." sort of thing - I REMEMBER YOU. You aren't slick or low key or sly. You tried to steal from us before, and (say it with me....) I REMEMBER YOU.

Last time I saved my boss from a "That was a twenty" scammer was a result of the burned hand teaching best. I knew he'd taken me before, so I put his five on the ledge of my drawer. Started to close my till. When he heard the clips snap down he immediately said "Uh, that was a twenty." in a condescending, you-don't-know-what-you're-doing sort of tone. I let the drawer slide back out and picked his five up off the ledge and held it up and said "Nope - here's your five right here. Nice try though."

He called when he got home and told my boss my comment. Bossman said he knew this guy and what I had done was wrong and uncalled for.

Like I said. It was the last time I saved my boss from a "That was a twenty" scammer.

[ralerin]

Sometimes, though, having them snarl "I gave you a blah blah blah!" can be handy.

Case in point, lady bought some stamps and paid with a $10. I gave her her 20 cents and the book and slammed the drawer shut and she went off. 30 seconds later she came in for her dollar, I was saying "I think I must have given it to you, are you sure it's not under the receipt or in your purse?" I fished out the dollar and gave it to her anyway. My drawer ended up being over, not under.

But here's the thing, she was nice, polite, and definitely not out to scam me. If she had screamed about she gave me a $20 and was missing $11, then I would've flagged down the manager to count the drawer. I had just genuinely flubbed up.

[GiftShopGirl]

He tried to hit me with the same thing a few days ago - I recognized him, and he was even making the exact same purchase

And therein lies the lesson for management - if a scammer learns that they can get away with it once, they WILL come back to do it again. I don't understand why managers feel the need to cater to these scammers in order to 'keep their business'. Your store is losing money so the scammers can make money - that's why it's called a 'scam' in the first place. They're not paying customers like everyone else. When will managers learn to back up their cashiers, and stop losing money to scammers?

[mikoyan29]

Geeze....I never thought "But he's a customer" would come to this.