Honesty At The Cashier Counter

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Bobby Cole, Sep 24, 2019.

  1. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    We’ve all had the experience of a cashier either overcharging or undercharging us for an item or two.
    Things just happen. Sometimes the code on a product hasn’t been changed to meet the price on the sale sign or maybe a cashier simply skipped an item and we didn’t get charged for it.
    I really do not know how many mistakes are made in a day at any particular popular store but mistakes are made nonetheless. Sometimes the mistakes are in favor of the store, and sometimes in favor of the customer. Looking at the big picture, it’s probably a wash.

    Here’s the thing though; how do we react when a mistake is made? Certainly, if we see that we are being overcharged we should bring it to the attention of whomever is in charge of that department but what if we are being undercharged or even given the wrong change? Do we also bring that to the cashier’s attention?

    Something happened yesterday that still has me bugged. I know what I have to do about it but I’m just throwing this out there for you guys to analyze and offer some input or maybe offer up your own experiences.

    I went with a friend of mine to buy some blinds for his new restaurant yesterday. As a side bar, I was and am totally against using blinds on the three walls of sectioned glass instead of hour glass curtains but he is set on the blinds so I went with him because I get a 10% discount and we’re talking about $800+ worth of blinds.

    Back to the incident.
    We needed 19 sets and the store only had 17 so we obviously had to settle for that hoping that another sister store would have the other two sets which he would buy later without my discount.
    We got to the cashier with the two filled carts and I flashed my card and the cashier acknowledged the card and then my friend told the cashier we had 17 sets. Okay so far.
    While he was dealing with the cashier he suddenly acted as though he was in a hurry and he told me to go ahead with my cart and he’d catch up. He did.
    Moving ahead, we were going down the highway in his truck and he was all smiles and when I asked him what he was so happy about he told me that the cashier had only charged him for 7 of the 17 sections of blinds. That’s was about a 500 dollar mistake!!

    Now, I look at things quite a bit differently than some folks. Some, like my friend, believe that it is somehow a giant blessing for such a large mistake in his favor to be made.
    I, on the other hand, believe that we are given choices all day long and to make the wrong choice may seem like it’s a blessing but to me, it’s a sign of failure. Failure to realize the greater blessing included with being honest and failure to pass yet another one of life’s tests.

    I know, as I first wrote, what I have on my plate for today. After a lot of thought and a little prayer, I do know what direction I have to go with my friend.
    That said, what are your thoughts on the subject? Have you had similar experiences?
     
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  2. Al Amoling

    Al Amoling Veteran Member
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    Wow. You sure have a problem to solve. I can't understand how anyone could be that callous to take that kind of advantage of anyone.
     
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  3. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    I honestly would be terrified I'd get caught. It's theft when you know you've been undercharged...a few pennies one might not notice..but £500???.. that's HUGE and there's no way a person wouldn't know that, so if the store realises there's 10 blinds missing from the stock unaccounted for, they only need to check a debit or credit card, to see who bought the last load!!

    ..and he used your discount card too Bobby (albeit you didn't realise what had happened, ..but ...*yikes* !! I would be sick with the worry.
     
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  4. Thomas Stearn

    Thomas Stearn Veteran Member
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    I'd probably have drawn the cashier's attention to that immediately knowing that you can't get away with such a big windfall anyway and wouldn't want to, of course. ;)

    Honestly, some time ago I forgot my wallet with $400 in cash (I had just drawn) in a supermarket trolley, and on another day, I left my wallet with cash and cards, which had slipped out of my coat, on the chair in a restaurant. Each time I was lucky to get it back. An honest finder had discovered my ID card with my address in the trolley and even brought it to my home, and in the restaurant, the next customer had found it and left it with reception where I could pick it up.

    Both incidents have confirmed me in my conviction that whenever possible I'll do my utmost to track down the owner or make it possible for them to get it back. I said "confirmed". ;)
     
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  5. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    No, I’m not really too worried or at least, not too worried about the legal ramifications.
    I’m more concerned with the character of someone I call a friend, someone whom I have known for about 15 years.

    By the end of the day, the legal problems will not even be part of the picture but still, someone is going to get hurt over it. For one, the cashier will probably lose her job no matter which of the two available “honest” scenarios I choose. I do not think the the store will simply slap a wrist over a $500 mistake and to be truthful, I probably wouldn’t let it go if I were in a management position.

    It’s still going to take some delicate shuffling around, but I hope that everything will end up for the better.
     
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  6. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    I'd definitely, without a doubt, go back to the store and pay for the ones that weren't paid for.

    One time, at Walmart, we left with a case of water that was under the cart and the cashier didn't see it and we forgot to tell her it was there. I asked my wife and a out it, she looked at the receipt and found that we hadn't been charged for it. Took the cart, with the water still underneath, back into the store and paid for it. We both felt very good about doing that.

    At a different time, we accidentally left a 24-can case of Bud Light under the seat of the riding cart at Walmart. Didn't notice we didn't have it until we got home. Hurried back to the store and it was sitting on the counter at the Customer Service area. We showed them the receipt, and told them we forgot to grab the case from under the cart. They gave us the case. Whom ever used the riding cart noticed the case of Bud Light under the seat and took it to Customer Service. The world isn't all bad.
     
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  7. Von Jones

    Von Jones Supreme Member
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    He is lucky that he was driving because if I was I would do a 'U turn' and head back to the store.
     
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  8. Von Jones

    Von Jones Supreme Member
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    And try my best not to go off on him while I'm driving to the store. Back in the day, my foot would be heavy on the gas and my mouth breathing some firey words.
     
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  9. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Yeah, that's a tough one. If it were something less than $500, it would be an easier matter to simply pay for it yourself and consider your friend to be a loss. That's a little tougher when it comes to that much money, and it's not like you stole it. Shortly after I had moved to California, I was feeling pretty comfortable in my neighborhood. Although I was living in a city that was in the middle of a bunch of other cities, I had come to know some people in my neighborhood, as I generally ate at the same couple of restaurants and shopped at the same stores.

    A friend from Michigan spent a week with me after coming to California and, when we went to a store where I knew the people who owned it, he shoplifted. I didn't know about it until he bragged about it later. I paid for it myself, but it was embarrassing. My friend didn't know any better, I suppose. I knew him from my high school days, when I shoplifted a few times too, although it was never something that set easily with me. But I wasn't a high school student any longer, and I knew these people.
     
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  10. Faye Fox

    Faye Fox Veteran Member
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    40 years ago I was undercharged. I was buying a specialized finish hammer for a project. It was $27 according to the bin sign. I was in a hurry, so I just grabbed it and headed to the cashier. I was asked to pay $7. I told the cashier that was wrong. She pointed to the sticker and it said $7. I tried to give her the $20 more and she refused and ask me to step out of line as I was holding up progress. The owner was near the exit door so I asked him what the price was. He said $27. I told him the clerk wouldn't take the $20 I owed. He said he had no idea how that sticker got on there, but yes the price to you is $7. Next time I went into that store I tried to give him the $20. He took me over to the counter and wrote me a gift certificate for $100. I said, no I cannot take this. He says sure you can. If not for you, I would have never known that all the finish hammers in that bin were priced $20 low. I have sold 10 since at $27 so here is your half for being honest. Now with scanning sometimes clerks miss an item that I am buying in quantity. I always point it out and they correct it and thank me.
     
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  11. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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  12. Al Amoling

    Al Amoling Veteran Member
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    I know this is not about the subject of the original post but back in 1986 we were on vacation and had stopped at a Hrdy's in the Florida pan handle. We had just visited my wife's sister and she recommended that we go to New Oreleans so we were on our way. We were someplace in Alabama when I stopped to rest a rest from driving. At this point I discovered that the money belt that my wife made me was missing. Since eating at lunch we'd only stopped to buy gas so headed back there. No luck at gas station. Back to Hardy's where we were told that a man had found a money belt and called sheriff. We went to county jail and were told that the sheriff was not there but wanted to see me in the morning. So the next morning we go to see the sheriff. He asks me to tell him the amount of cash and to describe the belt(easy to do since wife monorgrammed it). After he gave me the money he told me that they'd thought it was drug money. He told me the name and address of person who found it(happened to be water inspector for state of Florida) so I sent him a reward.
    We decided after going thru that same town the following year to never go b ack that way again. We were almost killed by a semi who passed too closely to a car pulling a travel trailer and set it into an erratic driving pattern whereby we headed into the median.
     
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  13. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Ya know, after examining my initial post, it really is all about one’s integrity / character so yes, your post does kind of miss the mark but it still hit the target.
     
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  14. Bill Boggs

    Bill Boggs Supreme Member
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    That is a tough one, one that is so easy to overlook. I think, I hope, I would return to the store and
    and report I was under-charged since the individual who undercharged you very well could lose
    their job since this could be the only recent large blind sale. I would tell management the truth or as
    near the truth as I thought necessary, and pay the difference. I would also tell my friend something
    like you did luck out but it cost me another five hundred or so and tell him why by expressing your
    feelings about such matters. The dollar amount is too large and if i didn't, this incident would be a
    detriment that would follow methe rest of my life, in most everything i did.
     
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  15. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    I see your point Bill but in this case, I wasn’t the culprit who made away with the mistaken savings.
    I didn’t see the dollar amount but only flashed my discount card (VA registration) and then took my cart out leaving my friend with his cart and the debit card processing at the cashier. I already knew how much it “should” have cost because that kind of thing happens naturally in my head.
    Heck, I didn’t even know of the mistake until he told me later on.

    But, that said, one of the options I have come up with is, (which I see you probably agree with) to notify the manager and offer to pay the difference on a payment schedule if my friend doesn’t wish to do what is right.
    In all actuality, I have very little interest in the blinds but just enough to help out with my discount at the store.
     
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