"You break it, you bought it"- no longer relevant

[Little Retail Rabbit]

I was convinced as a kid that if you broke something in a shop, you had to cough up for it. I suppose convincing kids that is a good way of trying to get them not to touch things, and I guess it worked on me! Of course, after years of working retail, I learned this was not true anyway- I've watched so many kids over the years wreck things or make products unsellable, and we would have to faulty them or bin them instantly. I would have loved to have demanded parents pay for them (especially as at that job, the company actually went into administration in the end, and we all got made redundant at our store!) but clearly that doesn't happen.

If only it was just children though. And if only you could demand they pay for the damage they have inflicted on our products.

All of the following happened on Friday:

Suck the First
This guy was a royal jerk, and I said as much quite loudly.

I was running the Self Service Checkouts at the time, and this man and his friend come along...with a worktop in a SHOPPING TROLLEY! In case you don't know, shopping trolleys like the ones you push around a supermarket are not designed to take the weight of huge, heavy items such as a worktop, as was CLEARLY obvious in this situation! The worktop had been through the timber-saw, with one quarter of its length cut off, both pieces in the trolley, but the longest part still towered over our heads, and as it was leaning to on the side of the trollley, the trolley was tipping. It was only upright because the SC was holding it upright. It was blatantly obvious this was dangerous.

So as the jackass approached a SSCO, I approached (carefully) and said "You really need to go and get a flat-bed trolley for that." (Designed for large, heavy items).

To which, the SC decides just yelling at his friend to hold the shopping trolley upright while he took his smaller items out of the trolley and placed them on the scanner. It wobbles dangerously, and its clear, they are struggling to keep it upright.

So I said, "No, sir, you really need to get the appropriate trolley for this, shopping trolleys are not designed to take this sort of weight, as you can clearly see- someone is going to get hurt!"

SC: "Well, I didn't know I was going to need it when I came in, alright?!"

It was then that, despite the worktop still having its plastic wrap on, we discovered there was no barcode. So I stepped far away from the trolley and its deadly cargo (it was now braced against a display, but was still needing human support, I was very anxious for other customers who now had to pass directly underneath the worktop to leave through SSCO) and phoned building, thinking, this is ok, this worktop has clearly JUST been through the timber saw, someone in that department will know immediately what I'm talking about and get me a barcode quite quickly (all the while, I'm planning all the ways I would happily help the man get sued if someone gets hit by the worktop).

However, what I didn't know was that there was only one person in that department, and he was currently operating the timber saw. So the phone just kept ringing.

But in all fairness, the SC had not been waiting THAT long, when he decided to take the worktop peices out of the trolley, prop them against the wall, and just walk out, leaving his other things on the scanner still, with the transaction still pending.

I was in a bit of a flap at this point- a small part of me was hoping he had finally decided to give in to reason and get a fucking flat bed trolley like I had told him to (and for those wondering why I didn't get it for him, I was manning the SSCOs, you can't leave them), but I knew what he had done. Twice he had said "just leave it" after all. He'd fucked off.

My supervisor came, and she thinks its a possibility its a scam. Now that worktop has been through the timber saw and cut down to size, we cannot sell it at its original price, and it will have to be marked down and put in the off-cuts. The fact he said "just leave it" only about 30 seconds after we discovered the lack of the barcode does indicate he could be planning to return in a day or two and try and buy it at mark-down price.

Suck the Second.
Just before my tea-break, I remembered seeing my supervisor with a very large sheet of polystyrene insulation. When I came back 15 minutes later, I was very surprised to see it still with her, only now broken quite cleanly into two halves. She was looking very disgruntled. I managed to pick up, as I continued serving that the customer had snapped it in 2 while she was looking for it on the online catalogue, I'm guessing just to make the size a little easier to handle (not that its heavy). However, once she found it on the catalogue and selected it, he disputed the price, claiming it had been about £7, when the catalogue said it was over £20. You can't really argue with the catalogue either- it is what it is, it goes by the EAN code. We've never had a problem with the prices being wrong with the OC before, only when people have clearly misread labels.

So he'd gone off looking for something else, leaving my supervisor very annoyed by the fact we now effectively had another "damaged" product that couldn't be resold at the correct price, and also that he was going back and forth, wanting different things, then changing his mind on them. My other supervisor had found some glue the SC needed for his project (lord knows what it was), claiming it would be better for it than what he'd picked out, and this SC was just giving them the run around. I started to find him suspicious.

Suck the Third.
Well, that same SC from Suck the Second, then came through my checkout, with a flat bed (YAY) and some cut up peices of plywood, that he'd clearly taken to the timber saw. Something tells me you'll know whats coming next.

I scanned the plywood, and it came up at £26.99.

He kicked off instantly "That's wrong! It's supposed to be £7.99!"

I asked him to wait a second, went straight to my supervisors, and the first thing I said was "This guy has got to be up to something!" I wasn't around for what followed. The flat bed was moved aside, my supervisor took the SC back to the timber area, where they found the plywood, found the price to say £26.99, and the SC continued to kick off, blah blah. Long story short, he chose something else, had that cut up, and this time, because someone else had guided him through the selection of it, when I scanned it up, there was no problem. But that was 2 different items he made unsellable, because he was frankly an idiot.

It doesn't seem this guy was trying to scam, now in hindsight anyway, but how fucking stupid have you got to be to do basically do that twice? When I saw him come back for the 3rd time, my heart sank, and I was already thinking "surely if this is about to happen again, he should be made to pay for this one?" To my relief, it didn't >.<

[Chromatix]

I'm really surprised that things like cutting (wood) and mixing (paint) of raw materials can be done before paying for the goods. Both of those would effectively make them difficult or impossible to sell to anyone else.

[Teskeria]

On the first one, hope your sup decided to hold those pieces a week before putting them out. imagine the catbutt face on the scammer when he saunters in, sure he is getting the right size at a discount, and it isn't there. He will be sure someone beat him to HIS stuff

[wolfie]

For the first one, the guy running the saw should have refused to make the cut until they came back with a flatbed cart. Simple safety issue.

Any chance of getting a scanner (to read the barcode and show the price) at the saw, so the item can be scanned and the customer told the price BEFORE it's cut? That should prevent cases like the third one - customer finds out it's 27 pounds rather than 8 pounds, and decides he doesn't want it, while it's still in its original (i.e. can sell to someone else) condition. Wouldn't do anything about scammers like the first case - get the material cut, remove the barcode (to prevent price scanning), then decide not to wait when the price check takes "too long" (and come back to get it from the markdown rack).

If losses are too high on "altered/decide not to purchase" (cut lumber, tinted paint, etc), the store might want to go with something like this: "as-is" items and "to be altered" items go on separate receipts, customer takes "as-is" items to their vehicle, comes back and gets "to be altered" items (receipt for these is printed as "plywood to be cut/paint to be tinted/whatever"). Saw operator/paint tinter won't alter the merchandise without a receipt (to show it's already been purchased), and marks the receipt to show the alteration has been done.

[Shalom]

My supervisor came, and she thinks its a possibility its a scam. Now that worktop has been through the timber saw and cut down to size, we cannot sell it at its original price, and it will have to be marked down and put in the off-cuts. The fact he said "just leave it" only about 30 seconds after we discovered the lack of the barcode does indicate he could be planning to return in a day or two and try and buy it at mark-down price.

This is why, before you put it in the cut-out bin, it might be a good idea to run it through the saw one or two more times. Bonus points if one of the two cuts is on the diagonal, and the wedge-shaped bit goes missing, so he can't just buy the two parts and nail them back together.

[wolfie]

This is why, before you put it in the cut-out bin, it might be a good idea to run it through the saw one or two more times. Bonus points if one of the two cuts is on the diagonal, and the wedge-shaped bit goes missing, so he can't just buy the two parts and nail them back together.

It's also why (or so I heard) some paint stores will, before putting "returned because it's mistinted" paint on the markdown shelf, add some random colour concentrate to change the tint.

[Argus]

It's also why (or so I heard) some paint stores will, before putting "returned because it's mistinted" paint on the markdown shelf, add some random colour concentrate to change the tint.

You mean like laborcat's?

[MoonCat]

Now I understand why the Orange Apron stores around here will only do one cut of a piece of wood. They can probably resell the larger pieces if they're returned, but smaller ones, not so much.

[fireheart]

Regarding the title, I remember once walking through a makeup store with my backpack (very big, thick one that held my laptop). Even though I was careful across the store to not swing into anyone or anything, somehow my bag caught on a bottle of nail polish and caused it to fall to the floor.

It broke and went all over my shoe.

The lady rushed over and cleaned it up and I offered to pay for it. She looked at me like I was nuts

[wolfie]

You mean like laborcat's?

That's probably where I heard about it.

[Seshat]

The lady rushed over and cleaned it up and I offered to pay for it. She looked at me like I was nuts

That's happened to me, too. I've even tried to insist on paying, only to have it refused.

[Kagato]

It seems to vary quite substantially from place to place, along with what the loss value of the item would be, plus whether or not the item is mass-produced.

Things like bottles of nail polish, food products in glass jars, etc; I've found over time that most of these the company will not charge you for because they can just be returned to the retailer as damaged goods and get it credited or replaced with relative ease - probably because they buy in such massive quantities it is only natural that the occasional one may be broken

Places that deal in hand-crafted goods though, such as glassware and pottery stores though tend to have "You break it = you bought it" signs up in the vast majority of cases, simply because if the item is broken, the crafters time and effort was rendered null and void, there is no way they can possibly sell it unless it is something they can melt down and re-craft.

[fireheart]

That's happened to me, too. I've even tried to insist on paying, only to have it refused.

I actually also offered to help too.

I've always been careful with my backpack ever since then.

[Jetfire]

Attitude is probably a factor as well, even in the hand-made "You break it , you bought it" shops. If the break was clearly accidental and the breaker is contrite (like most people here tend to be), it'll likely just be written off, no harm, no foul.

On the other hand, if the breaker is an SC, and broke the object purposefully, or even just because they weren't as careful as they should have been (pushing a cart so it rams into shelves as opposed to a strap catching on a bottle), then they should be (and often may be) charged as much as possible and/or banned. At least in an ideal world they would be. Realistically they probably won't be punished much unless it's a smaller shop where the owners/employees have more power it seems.

[laborcat]

You mean like laborcat's?

That's probably where I heard about it.

OMG I forgot I posted that. Wonder how it all turned out?