7.05.2006

the scam stops here

today i had a newbie on register. right in the middle of a huge rush an older man plops a bag right on the counter and tells newbie he needs a refund.
having never done a return before, newbie asks me for help.
i can see the older man shift uncomfortably when he sees he'll be dealing with me, and not the newbie.

"i want to return these two mugs," he informs me and hands me the receipt.
now, the first thing i do when handling a return is check the date on the receipt. if the items were purchased more than 30 days before, i can only issue store credit.
so, looking at the receipt i noticed it was dated 7/05/06.

that's right. he purchased the mugs earlier in the day.
well, not exactly 'purchased'. upon closer inspection, i saw he had brought back a more expensive mug and exchanged it for the two mugs he was trying to return in my bux.

"ok," i tell newbie. "you push 'return', enter the sku for the two mugs and then total it out. now you hit the button for store credit - "
"no!" the man interrupted me. "i paid cash for them! i want cash back, not store credit! store credit is useless to me!"
"oh, i'm sorry sir, but i can only give you store credit - "
"no!" he interrupts me again. "i paid cash!"
"i'm sorry, but the receipt doesn't reflect that you paid cash. it only shows that you returned a mug and exchanged them for these two."
"well, what happened was my wife wanted a mug, so i bought one of those big ones, and then she said she wanted one with a handle, so i got her these two but i guess these are the wrong kind and she wants me to return them."
"i understand, and i would give you cash back if i could," i totally lied, but since i knew he was lying to me i didn't feel the slightest bit guilty. "but the computer system won't allow me to do that since the receipt doesn't show a cash transaction."
"well, they took my original receipt that showed i paid cash!"
"oh, well you should go back to that store. they probably still have the receipt and you can get cash back from them." i told him, knowing full well no such receipt existed.

scammer man left unhappy, and without cash in his pocket.
i then explained to newbie that a common scam is to steal a mug, take it to a bux and and exchange it for something different - then go to ANOTHER bux and try to either fool or intimidate the register partner into giving back cash.
the very sad thing is it works more often than it should, which is why the scam will continue.

customer rant: your condiment bar is right across from the registers. that means every time you ring someone up, you are facing the condiment bar. i know you're not visually impaired, so i can only assume you are failing to do your duty. why the hell is your condiment bar such a mess?!? how can you stand directly across from it and not be bothered by the trash overflowing, the granules of sugar spilled across the top, and the containers with dried milk on the side? please, do your job or quit.

5 comments:

Cup said...

What's sad is these folks are scamming for, what, $9.95?

Natalie said...

It seems like an aweful lot of trouble to go to for not very much money.

Tom said...

For a lot of scammers it's not the size of the payoff, it's the rush of pulling off the scam.

Sling said...

If people would put all the energy they use scamming into actual work they'd make a lot more money..

Grish said...

LOl I wouldn't have ever thought of doing something like that...